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China has always tried to maintain multilateralism and advocated working together to deal with global climate change through multilateral mechanisms. Although China’s announcement to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 comes as no surprise, its commitment to carbon neutrality does. As the period between its carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is far shorter than that in the developed countries, China’s economic and energy structures need to be adjusted toward the low-carbon and carbon-free end with unprecedented efforts. To that end, China should define the responsibilities of local authorities and industrial entities to promote the orderly accomplishment of carbon peaking in all regions and industries. To supply the huge investments needed to achieve the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, China has an urgent need to accelerate the development of green finance and a national carbon emissions trading market, guide the rational allocation of resources, and channel resources to eco-friendly projects for green and low-carbon development. At the same time, China and the international community should strengthen dialogue and coordination, promote international cooperation on the way to carbon neutrality, formulate widely acceptable policy guidelines as soon as possible, and avoid unilateral measures that may cause conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions trading is a major innovation in the practice of using market mechanism to control and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promote green and low-carbon development. It is an important way to achieve China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals (the "dual carbon" goals) at a relatively low cost. Starting late and having gone through three development stages, China's national carbon market has entered a new stage. However, given the problems such as incomplete institutional, regulatory and carbon emissions verification systems, less balanced and vibrant market, limited transaction entities and trading products, and lack of voice due to insufficient participation in relevant international affairs, continuous efforts are still required to further improve this market by deepening reform, strengthening capacity building and increasing international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an economic means to cope with climate change, carbon trading has become an important measure to reduce carbon emissions in China. It has been over seven years since the initiation of seven pilot carbon markets, but has the implementation achieved the goal of controlling carbon emissions in the region? Are the effects really resulted from the carbon market other than other energy-saving and emission reduction policies? Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2005 to 2016 this paper conducts an empirical study on the emission reduction effects of pilot projects using the Difference-in-differences model (DID). The results show that: (1) The implementation of carbon markets in Beijing, Shanghai and Hubei exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on local carbon emissions, but a promoting effect in Guangdong, and no significant effect was found in Tianjin; (2) In terms of time lag effect, no significant inhibiting effect on the local carbon emissions is found during the first year of opening of Shanghai carbon market but the effect grew significantly from 2015 to 2016; while for Hubei and Beijing, significant effect was shown from the first year of running. Being an experimental program to see whether the carbon trading policy would work in China or not and if it does, under what conditions and settings the policy becomes effective, the 7 pilot markets provide important experiences and lessons to the upcoming nationwide market in China. Based on the empirical result that the carbon trading system in Beijing, Shanghai and Hubei effectively reduced carbon emissions, it is suggested that the national carbon market should actively learn from the experiences of these three pilot markets particularly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]