Shenzhen to launch carbon trading Tuesday

The city of Shenzhen will become the first to launch a carbon trading scheme on Tuesday, part of a pilot program as Beijing weighs the possibility of launching a nationwide scheme by 2015, Financial Times reported. The program will cover 635 companies, although the government has not specified which companies, according to Hongliang Chai of consultancy Thomson Reuters Point Carbon. The companies’ total emissions equate to just more than one-third of Shenzhen’s total emissions as of 2010. Six other pilot schemes will be launched in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing as well as in Guangdong and Hubei provinces.