An alliance of 15 Chinese carbon exchanges on Friday vowed to use their influence to ensure fairness, efficiency and transparency in China’s national carbon market.

The China Environmental Trading Institution Alliance on Friday held a meeting in Wuhan with government officials, setting out their ambitions for the national emissions trading scheme, due to launch in 2017.

The alliance, founded last year, is made up of the seven exchanges hosting CO2 trading in China’s pilot markets as well as bourses in Guizhou, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shanxi, Sichuan and Yunnan.

In a statement the exchanges said they would insist on innovation in the market, while ensuring it would be an effective, transparent and fair ETS. They would also help improve MRV structures, permit allocation processes, and contribute to capacity building in data reporting and asset management among companies in their regions.

Exchanges tend to play a more influential role in carbon market building in China compared to other countries.

A draft emissions trading law circulated by the NDRC last month specifically said exchanges would be responsible for developing trading rules for the national market, even though the final decision was to rest with the central government.

Chairmanship in the alliance is rotating on an annual basis, and the 2015 chair is the Hubei Emissions Exchange, which has possibly been the most ambitious among all the pilot exchanges in getting speculators to join, and has been rewarded by getting 40% of all the allowance trading business across the seven pilots.

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com

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