Tianjin to launch China's first domestic carbon market

The Tianjin Climate Exchange (TCX) is preparing to launch China’s first domestic carbon market, the Financial Times reported. The exchange, a joint venture between the Chicago Climate Exchange, the Tianjin government and PetroChina’s asset management unit, plans to start a cap-and-trade scheme in six to 12 months and is already recruiting members. A cap-and-trade scheme is a plan where members agree to lower their carbon emissions by a set amount over a given period of time and trade carbon credits generated by those reductions. Six other climate exchanges exist throughout the country, but most are handling small scale deals to help individual companies become carbon neutral. Currently there is no clear framework for carbon trading in China, so any scheme set up by the TCX would be voluntary. However, Beijing has said it is open to experimenting with the idea.