China's emissions trading opened at 48 yuan per ton

China's long-awaited national emissions trading opened at 48 yuan per ton. The Chinese media report. The trading platform offers the purchase and sale of pollution certificates. The so-called ETS program is intended to help the world's second largest economy to reduce emissions and, as planned, not to emit more CO2 in 2060 than can be broken down by plants. In the first phase of the world's largest emissions trading system, more than 2000 power plants are included in the program. They are responsible for four billion tons of CO2 emissions per year. That's about 40 percent of the country's total emissions. According to official information, cement factories and some aluminum manufacturers will follow in the coming year. On Friday, a ton of CO2 was traded in Shanghai for 52.78 yuan, the equivalent of about eight US dollars (5.80 euros). Compared to the price in the EU (around $ 57) that is little. With CO2 certificates, companies acquire the right to emit greenhouse gases. The trade should create an incentive to invest money in a climate-friendly modernization of the plants. Similar to Europe, the government will distribute a certain amount of certificates to the companies free of charge. If they emit more CO2, they have to purchase additional certificates on the exchange. If your emissions remain below a certain target value, you can turn excess certificates into cash. The introduction of emissions trading was first addressed by President Xi Jinping shortly before the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Since then, plans for a launch have been postponed several times before it finally opened for trading at 9:30 a.m. local time.