China carbon market to launch earliest in November

China will launch its nationwide carbon emissions trading system by November at the “very earliest,” a government researcher told Reuters on Tuesday. As part of pledges made to help secure a global climate change pact in Paris in 2015, China said it would complete the launch of the nationwide emissions trading platform this year. The market was originally expected to launch in the first half of 2017, but regulators have struggled to deal with a variety of problems, including the valuation of permits trading on existing pilot exchanges, as well as data accuracy and transparency problems in some industrial sectors. The researcher with an official think-tank said the launch was being held back by gaps in legislation as well as incomplete data in sectors like papermaking. The researcher, who did not want to disclose his name, also said there was not yet a strong consensus on how carbon emission quotas should be allocated.