In China, Carbon Is Super Cheap While Coal Is Very Expensive (1)

摘要

Emitting carbon in China just went from being effectively free, to just very cheap. At the same time, generating power from coal continues to be enormously expensive.China’s much-anticipated and oft-delayed national carbon market has set emissions for power companies at about $8 a ton in its first morning in action. Prices rose by their daily limit, butthey’re still a sliver of the cost imposed by the trading scheme in the European Union, which has now been supplanted by China as the world’s largest.Probably the biggest reason why China needs a carbon market is coal. Prices are barreling higher as a heat wave across some of the major industrial provinces pushes local grids to theirlimits, with scorching temperatures doubtless exacerbated by the heating effects of the nation’s addiction to the dirtiest fossil fuel.