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partnership for market readiness

10 practical steps to create an Emissions Trading System

Pierre Guigon's picture
 
10 steps to create an Emissions Trading System. Photo: ICAP

Carbon pricing is increasingly being used by governments and companies around the world as a key strategy to drive climate action while maintaining competitiveness, creating jobs and encouraging innovation. The importance of carbon pricing was amplified in the run up to the global climate change agreement in Paris last December.

As countries move towards the implementation of the Agreement, it is the focus of a World Bank conference in Zurich this week which brings together over 30 developed and developing countries to discuss opportunities and challenges related to the role of carbon pricing in meeting their mitigation ambitions.

Carbon markets in the Paris Agreement - an early holiday gift

Vikram Widge's picture
Max Edkins / World Bank
COP21 conference center at Le Bourget, near Paris. Photo: Max Edkins / World Bank


Last Saturday, UN climate negotiators from 195 countries agreed on a historic climate change accord in Paris after two weeks of intense negotiations. While many of us were hoping for a hook that would support the use of markets, we were happily surprised to see the extent and detail on carbon markets that was ultimately included in the Paris Agreement.

Step-by-step: How to construct an emissions reporting system

Pauline Kennedy's picture
Oil and gas field. Asian Development Bank/Creative Commons


In preparing for a climate agreement in Paris, countries all over the world are planning their domestic strategies for cutting emissions. This often requires new policies to create incentives for low-carbon development, and for that, governments need accurate and comprehensive emissions data.

One important building block is a greenhouse gas reporting program, which a growing number of countries are working on. Mexico, for example, is gathering information from its newly established emissions reporting program to support its mitigation policies. The European Union’s and California’s reporting programs are essential to their emissions trading systems, and China’s reporting program will underpin its national trading system, planned for launch in late 2016.

At Carbon Expo today in Barcelona, the World Bank Group’s Partnership for Market Readiness with the World Resources Institute released the Guide for Designing Mandatory GHG Reporting Programs. Drawing on 13 existing and proposed greenhouse gas emissions reporting programs, the report looks at successful ways to build a strong data collection system and showcases best practices. It provides step-by-step guidance on developing and implementing these reporting programs.

Putting A Price on Carbon: Nations Opt For Market-Based Solutions

Xueman Wang's picture

Curt Carnemark/World Bank

Climate change is a threat to global development and to poverty alleviation. And yet, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is proving difficult because all players in an economy contribute to the problem. To make a difference, we must reduce our emissions in a coordinated manner.

This is no easy task. So where do we go from here?

One approach involves pricing the “externalities” that are contributing to climate change. Pricing externalities into the costs of production is nothing new. A classic textbook example is the paper mill that sits upstream from a fishing village.

Discharge from the mill pollutes the river, diminishing the fishermen’s catch. The mill freely uses the water of the river in its production of paper, but does not pay for the damage of the negative externality that it causes. To remedy the situation, regulations can be put in place to stop waste from going into the river – or the mill can pay a fine equivalent to the loss of the fishermen’s revenue.

The latter is an example of an externality priced into the cost of production. The same can be done to combat climate change.

In this case, carbon emissions are the externality that must be priced. Doing so provides a cost-effective and efficient means to drive down greenhouse gas emissions as the cost of such pollution goes up.

Countries Push Forward with Greenhouse Gas Market Plans

Sarah Moyer's picture

Shutterstock
On the outskirts of Marrakesh’s historic medina, amid bustling construction and new housing developments, the Partnership for Market Readiness’ governing group gathered this month for its final meeting of 2013.

After nearly three years of operation, this group of 30 countries has much to be proud of.

So far, nearly $30 million in grant funding has been allocated to 16 nations to support the design and development of market approaches to greenhouse gas emission reductions. A one-of-a-kind platform to exchange ideas and lessons on market approaches to mitigation has been created. And a technical work program has been launched to support country implementation of critical tools such as data management systems, offset standards, and policy mapping exercises.

Set the Right Price on Carbon and Investors Will Come

Karin Rives's picture

Dana Smillie/World Bank

This was not the time to discuss the science of climate change, or ways to protect coastal cities against monster storms.

The development experts, journalists, policy wonks and investment professionals who gathered at the Center for Global Development in Washington this week were there to sort out a much thornier issue: How to mobilize and spend the $700 billion or so the world will need annually – above what’s already being spent – to slow and adapt to climate change.

Their consensus: Current levels of public and private finance won’t even begin to do the job.

China Gets Ready for a New Carbon Era

Wang Shu's picture

 Rush hour traffic on a road in Beijing, China. - Photo: Shutterstock

Also available in Chinese

The 5th Assembly of the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) is coming to an end after rich and rewarding meetings in Washington DC this week. I had the opportunity to present China’s final Market Readiness Proposal (MRP) (pdf), or in more simple language, China’s proposal to build a national emission trading system (ETS). Together with China, the PMR also received proposals from Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico on their initiatives. (Also read: Can Carbon Taxes Be Effective?)

From the Chinese perspective, our MRP serves as a summary of the Government’s initial thoughts on how a domestic ETS would be established to cover the whole country. For this to happen, a lot of work needs to be done, and this proposal provides a framework and roadmap to guide us on our journey. We are expecting domestic and international institutions, experts and stakeholders from different levels to be involved in this design process. Above all, we hope to draw on the experience of existing carbon markets around the world as well as from the seven pilot ETSs - comprising five cities and two provinces - set to start this year in China. Facilitating continuous technical dialogues, PMR serves as a knowledge exchange platform for our team from China and all the participant countries. This is a unique and valuable experience. 

Shaping the Next Generation of Carbon Markets

Rachel Kyte's picture

 Smoke coming out of two smokestacks at a factory in Estonia. - Photo: World Bank/Flickr

Right now, the carbon markets of the future are under construction in all corners of the world.

China is determined to pursue low-carbon development and is embracing the market as the most efficient way to do so. Wang Shu, the deputy director of China's National Development and Reform Commission, told us this week that he sees the "magic of the market" as the most efficient way to drive China's green growth.

Five Chinese cities and two provinces are piloting emissions trading systems with the goal of building a national carbon market. Chile is exploring an emissions trading system and focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Mexico is developing market-based mechanisms in energy efficiency that could cut its emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2020. Costa Rica is aiming for a carbon-neutral economy by 2021.

Each of the countries pioneering market-based mechanisms to reduce their domestic carbon emissions are leaders. Bring them together in one room, and you begin to see progress and the enormous potential for a powerful networking domestic system that could begin to produce a predictable carbon price -- a sina que non for the speed and scale of climate action we need.

That's happening this week at the World Bank.

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