Symbolic effort

Quit driving, walk to the office or take bus or subway. You can not only reduce your footprint but also earn money to encourage more environmental minds to do so by selling your carbon credit.

It happened in Beijing.

From July 20 to September 20, when the city was hosting the Beijing Olympic and Paralympics Games, 81,670 car users in Beijing voluntarily opted for public transportation. And in turn, they earned 8,895 tons of CO2 emission reduction credits.

The credit was put on auction at the China Beijing Environment Exchange as ecological compensation on December 11. The trade was the first of its kind in China.

Their green commuting actions were quantified into carbon credits through an online Emissions Reduction Measurement Calculator developed by scientists from Tsinghua University and the US-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

"The sale was much more like a public welfare activity rather than a real commercial trade," says Huang Haoming, secretary general of the China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO), partner of the green initiative.

China has not taken binding carbon reduction responsibility, according to the Kyoto Protocol and so far, there is no carbon-trading platform in this country. Therefore, all the parties involved in the green commuting activities don't call the auction "carbon trading", though they say all the proceeds of the sale will be used to fund future environmental activities to encourage emissions reduction.

The concept of green commuting, which was introduced to China more than three years ago by EDF and CANGO, promotes eco-friendly ways of traveling while improving commuters' health. Traveling by bus, subway, bicycles, walking and even carpooling are all considered sustainable transportation that lowers emissions and reduces traffic jams. In the long run, the improved environment improves the health of residents in return.

Statistics shows that the per capita energy consumption to travel 100 kilometers by car is 12 times of that by taking a bus, 33 times of that by taking a fuel-cell bus and 20 times of that of taking subway.

While there was an upsurge in green commuting in Beijing this year, its municipal government implemented the odd-even license plate scheme from July 20 to September 20. Some 3.3 million vehicles were taken off the roads every day and about 4 million people reportedly turned to green commuting as a result.

The green commuting campaign has chosen Shanghai, the host city of the 2010 World Expo, and Guangzhou, the host of the 16th Asian Games in 2012 as their next destination after the Beijing Olympics, according to Zhang Jianyu, head of EDF's China program.

"The Beijing Olympic Games had triggered more voluntary action from the public," says Zhang. "The 8,895 tons of carbon credits are especially special because they are a demonstration of Beijing citizens' commitment to host a green Olympics."

Because it was the first time to trade carbon credits as ecological compensation in China, there was no clear pricing mechanism for the transaction, says Zhang. "There was no bottom and ceiling price for this transaction, and it bears more environmental significance than the economic returns."

China Beijing Environment Exchange, the first environmental equity trading institution in China, began operating only this August. However, since a legal and structural framework for emission trading has yet to be established in the China, the Beijing exchange is not carrying out any actual trades at the moment.

Its present mission is to promote the exchange of technologies for environmental protection, energy conservation and emissions reduction, to provide a platform for the trade of discharge rights of SO2 and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), a major measurement of water pollution, and to act as an information service for greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

"With this exchange being established, China is more likely to have a say in the pricing of carbon trading in the international market, " Xiong Yan, head of CBEE, said at the opening ceremony of the exchange in August.

"It is also expected to help lift domestic carbon emissions quota prices to the international level by providing access to trading information for local sellers," said Xiong.

Currently Chinese sellers sell carbon emissions quotas at between 8 and 10 euros per ton, compared to the international level of around 17 euros per ton, he says. "The gap is largely because of information asymmetry."

(China Daily 12/22/2008 page4)