China’s National Carbon Emissions Trading Market Enters the "Carbon Market 2.0" Era

This year marks the fifth anniversary of China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality ("Dual Carbon") goals. Experts and scholars from multiple sectors are calling for accelerated development of a standardized system, and the creation of a collaborative ecosystem driven by policy guidance, technological support and market empowerment. They advocate leveraging domestic and international sustainable development standards to facilitate the green and low-carbon transformation of Chinese enterprises.

Carbon neutrality and green development constitute China’s core strategies for advancing high-quality growth and addressing climate change. At the 5th China Carbon Neutrality and Green Development Conference 2025 held on December 5, Xu Zengde, Chairman of China 

Certification & Inspection Group (CCIC), stated that green and low-carbon transformation is no longer an optional choice, but an imperative task tied to the shared future of humanity.

Xu Zengde pointed out that China’s energy consumption intensity stands at 1.5 times the global average, with a high per capita consumption share of fossil fuels. Energy demand will maintain rigid growth until 2035. During this critical period, certification, evaluation and standardization must be harnessed to break through cross-sector decarbonization coordination channels covering energy, industry, transportation and other sectors, removing efficiency bottlenecks caused by isolated decarbonization efforts. Meanwhile, active participation in shaping domestic and international policy frameworks will align China’s Dual Carbon practices with the formulation of global climate governance rules. This will help Chinese enterprises evade international trade barriers and eliminate technical and institutional obstacles to delivering the country’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

"As the anchor of the national economy, central state-owned enterprises (central SOEs) are core players in fostering new quality productive forces and accelerating the development of a modern industrial system. They also serve as pioneers in advancing green development and delivering the Dual Carbon goals," said Wei Chihao, Party Secretary of the Research Center of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). As key participants in China’s global economic cooperation and green governance, central SOEs have long explored deep integration between international expansion and green transformation through their overseas operations. In terms of energy transition, central SOEs continuously scaled up overseas clean energy businesses during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, with rising green content in their overseas development portfolios year after year.

Statistics show that investment by central SOEs in overseas clean energy projects grew annually from 2022 to 2024, with cumulative investment exceeding RMB 60 billion. For biodiversity conservation, central SOEs poured nearly RMB 10 billion from 2021 to 2024 into environmental governance and ecological protection, building a beautiful homeland together with local communities.

Wei Chihao introduced that a research project on central SOE green supply chain management systems was completed in 2024, delivering outcomes including Guidelines on the Development of Green and Low-Carbon Supply Chains for Central SOEs, which provide decision-making references for central SOEs building green supply chains. The research realized monetary valuation of central SOEs’ environmental and social value in climate change response and resource recycling, furnishing powerful tools for corporate sustainability disclosure and corporate governance.

Jiang Zhaoli, former First-Class Inspector of the Climate Change Department under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, addressed the conference and noted that as the world’s largest carbon emitter and largest developing country, the development of China’s carbon market bears profound implications not only for delivering its own Dual Carbon targets but also for reshaping the landscape of global climate governance. He stated that the Opinions on Advancing Green and Low-Carbon Transformation and Strengthening the Development of the National Carbon Market, jointly issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council in August this year, sounded the clarion call that officially ushered China’s national carbon emissions trading market into the "Carbon Market 2.0" era.

Jiang explained that the carbon emissions trading market acts as a vital instrument to optimize the allocation of limited emission space resources by converting them into tradable assets. As an economic mechanism that leverages market forces to drive emission cuts, carbon markets have become a primary policy tool for countries worldwide to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.

Scene of the 5th China Carbon Neutrality and Green Development Conference 2025, December 5 Photography by Zhang Ke

"The carbon pricing system transmits carbon price signals across all industries, shaping investment, financing, product sales and technological innovation," Jiang Zhaoli remarked. Operating under the mechanism of "costs for emissions and gains from emission reductions", the carbon market drives in-depth transformation of traditional industries, nurtures new quality productive forces, unlocks endogenous momentum for green and low-carbon development across society, and generates a large number of high-skilled green jobs.

Daniel Shechtman, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and world-renowned materials scientist, delivered a video address stating that carbon neutrality spans a wide range of fields. Realizing this vision relies on collective efforts and consensus across industries and communities, as well as international cooperation. It is urgent to scale up sustainable business models and advance the green and low-carbon transition of supply chains and industrial sectors.

"During its transition toward high-quality development, China has accumulated massive patents, issued thousands of standards, and established multi-industry quality certification systems. Yet these fields have long operated in isolation: many patents fail to be recognized by relevant standards, creating technological silos, while numerous standards lack supporting enabling mechanisms," said Liu Yanhua, Honorary Director of the National Expert Committee on Climate Change and Former Vice Minister of Science and Technology. He argued that an integrated system linking patents, standards and quality certification must be established, alongside a national-level data repository integrating these three elements, to resolve institutional blockages, data disconnections and interest frictions.

Jiang Bing, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Energy Research Society and Director of its Carbon Neutrality Special Committee, held that carbon neutrality essentially entails replacing traditional resource-intensive energy production with advanced new energy manufacturing. Implementing the carbon neutrality strategy means cultivating new quality productive forces, whereby advanced new energy manufacturing fulfills functions once undertaken by conventional energy and resource extraction industries.

How can carbon neutrality and green development be advanced amid a new global landscape? Zhang Jianyu, Chief Development Director of the Green Development and Investment Coalition for the Belt and Road Initiative, told Yicai Global that the coalition has united an initial group of 16 Chinese and foreign financial institutions and partners to build a communication and cooperation platform covering key areas such as green financing instrument innovation, overseas carbon asset development and climate-resilient infrastructure construction. It coordinates domestic and international green development resources to address financing bottlenecks in green Belt and Road projects and accelerate their implementation.

"Since its launch, the partnership has carried out practical cooperation with countries including Honduras and Indonesia, and actively aligned with Brazil’s national platform for green development investment and financing," Zhang Jianyu added. At a regular press conference held by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on November 28, relevant officials disclosed that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will collaborate with the People’s Bank of China to establish a Steering Committee for the Green Development Investment and Financing Partnership. This will further enhance the partnership’s capacity for overall coordination and service delivery, support Chinese green finance to "go global", and provide policy recommendations and directional guidance for major financial cooperation on the green Belt and Road Initiative.

At the 5th China Carbon Neutrality and Green Development Conference 2025, relevant institutions released three national standards:

1.Quantification Methods and Requirements for Carbon Footprints of Greenhouse Gas Products – Electrical and Electronic Appliances

2.Guidelines for Zero-Carbon Factory Evaluation in the Electrical and Electronic Industry

3.Guidelines for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions of Electrical and Electronic Products and Systems

Meanwhile, the International Council for Carbon Accounting and Verification (ICAVC) issued two standards:

1.Conformity Evaluation Standard for Energy and Carbon Management Software Functions

2.Technical Specifications for Credible Carbon Efficiency Evaluation of Computing Power in Data Centers