III. Low-carbon Pilots and Demonstration

Since 2014, the Chinese government has been deepening national low-carbon province and low-carbon city pilot, and promoting low-carbon industrial park, low-carbon community, low-carbon city (town) and green transportation pilot in order to explore low-carbon development pathways and patterns at different levels and in different fields.

(I) Deepening National Low-carbon Province and Low-carbon City Pilot

Each low-carbon pilot area further strengthened the peak-target-forced mechanism, improved the GHG emissions statistics and management system, established the target-oriented responsibility system to achieve GHG emissions control targets, built the low-carbon industrial system, actively promoted low-carbon green lifestyles and consumption patterns, and reinforced low-carbon development capabilities and support. Of 42 pilot provinces and cities in two batches, 13 established low-carbon development funds, and 36 set up developed carbon reduction target decomposition and assessment mechanisms. All the pilot provinces and cities have clearly put forward peak targets or are studying the issue, and the peak year proposed by most pilot provinces and cities is 2025 or before. Each pilot area started from their realities and worked out many well-established low-carbon development patterns, including urban carbon emissions accounting and management platform, carbon emissions impact assessment, carbon emissions trading, corporate carbon emissions accounting reporting, low-carbon product certification, etc. In September 2015, Beijing, Hainan, Shenzhen and other 7 pilot provinces and cities demonstrated China's outstanding achievements in low-carbon urban construction and response to climate change on the First Session of the U.S.-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit.

(II) Accelerating Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot

Fully launching carbon emissions trading pilot. By the end of 2014, the 7 carbon emissions trading pilot provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangdong, Shenzhen and Hubei issued local carbon emissions trading management measures, covering more than 1,900 emission-control enterprises and units and allocating about 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions quota. Pilot areas reinforced compliance monitoring and enforcement, with the compliance rate hitting 96% and 98% in 2014 and 2015 respectively. As of the end of August 2015, the 7 pilot provinces and cities saw accumulated transactions of local quota up to about 40.24 Mtons, with a turnover of about 1.2 billion Yuan, and the accumulated auction quota reached about 16.64 Mtons, with a turnover of about 800 million Yuan.

Constantly pushing forward carbon emissions trading pilot programs. The pilot regions constantly improved the rules on quota allocation, GHG emissions accounting and verification, etc., and some pilot regions played an exemplary role in exploring regional carbon market. To activate the carbon market, the pilot regions kept expanding the scope of trading players and developed carbon financial products and services focusing on local quota or Chinese Certified VERs (CCER). All the pilot units provided that the emission-control enterprises and units could offset its quota with CCER which could account for 5-10% of the allocated quota.

Promoting the development of national carbon market. NDRC issued Interim Measures on Carbon Emission Permit Trading in December 2014 to regulate the development and operation of the carbon emissions trading market, drafted Regulations on National Carbon Emissions Permit Trading (Draft), built and put into operation the national carbon emission trading registration system.

(III) Carrying out Low-carbon Industrial Park, Community and City (Town) Pilot

Carrying out national low-carbon industrial park pilot. In June 2014, MIIT and NDRC reviewed and published the first list of 55 national low-carbon industrial park pilots, and approved implementation program of 39 low-carbon industrial park pilots in 2015. Each pilot witnessed a substantial decline in carbon emissions per unit of industrial added value by promoting renewable energies, accelerating the low-carbon transformation of traditional industries and developing new low-carbon industries. In about three years, China plans to create a number of low-carbon enterprises mastering core low-carbon technologies and advanced low-carbon management, and to explore the low-carbon management mode suitable for China's industrial parks to lead the low-carbon development of industrial sector.

Carrying out low-carbon community pilot. In February 2015, NDRC issued Guidelines for Low-Carbon Community Pilot Construction, which provided a category-based guidance for the selection standards, construction targets, construction contents and construction standards for newly-built urban communities, existing urban communities and rural communities. It also started the studies on Evaluation Indicator System for Low-Carbon Communities Pilot and the carbon emissions accounting methods for low-carbon communities.

Carrying out national low-carbon city (town) pilot. In August 2015, NDRC issued the Notice of NDRC on Accelerating National Low-Carbon City (Town) Pilot, which proposed, within about three years, to build a number of national low-carbon model cities (towns) characteristic of integration between industrial development and urban construction, rational space layout, intensive resources utilization, low-carbon and environment-friendly infrastructure, low-carbon and efficient production, and low-carbon and livable life. Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City (Guangdong), Zhuhai Hengqin New District (Guangdong), Qingdao Sino-Germany Eco-Park (Shandong), Zhenjiang Guantang Low-Carbon New City (Jiangsu), Wuxi Sino-Sweden Low-Carbon Eco-City (Jiangsu), Kunming Chenggong Low-Carbon New District (Yunan), Wuhan Huashan New Eco-City (Hubei) and Sanming New Eco-City (Fujian) were selected as the first national low-carbon city (town) pilots.

(IV) Promoting Low-carbon Pilots and Demonstration in Other Fields

Continuing to carry out green transportation pilot and demonstration. The Chinese government listed Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Liaoning as green transportation provinces, and added 17 green transportation cities including Tianjin, Handan, JiYuan, Anshan and Bengbu, 13 green highways including Hegang-Dalian Highway, Nanchang-Zhangshu Highway and Daozhen-Wengan Highway, 7 green ports including Guangzhou Port, Dalian Port and Fuzhou Port, and 69 green transportation equipment projects. LNG pilot in the shipping industry was also launched.

Promoting Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) demonstration and pilot. Since 2014, NDRC and the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute co-sponsored "Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology, Equipment and Industrial Development Seminar" and other activities; held the first senior seminar on CCUS technologies and demonstration projects; and supported China Petroleum Chemical Industry Federation, PetroChina and Shenhua Group to jointly launch the large-scale integrated CCUS project. MEP organized the compilation of Technical Guidelines for Carbon Dioxide Capture, Utilization and Storage Environmental Risk Assessment (Trial), which proposed the methods to assess environmental risks of CCUS demonstration projects. The Ministry of Land Resources initially completed the assessments of carbon dioxide geological storage potentials and adaptability in 417 basins, and managed to implement China's first CO2 geological storage demonstration project in Inner Mongolia.

Carrying out sponge city pilot. In 2014, MHRUD issued Technical Guidelines for Sponge City Construction (Trial) to guide the shift from traditional "fast rainwater drainage" to the multi-objective whole-process integrated management model featured by "infiltration, stagnation, storage, purification, utilization, discharge", thereby promoting rainwater collection, purification and utilization. MHRUD, in conjunction with MOF, issued the Notice on Carrying out Sponge City Construction Pilot with Central Financial Support, and financial subsidies were granted to pilot sponge cities. At present, the construction of the identified 16 pilot sponge cities is progressing steadily.