The word carbon emissions seems to be far away from us.

Achieve carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutral in 2060. Although the word carbon emissions appears more frequently in 2021, with the passage of time, carbon emissions do not seem to change our lives. I just occasionally found that the bus I took turned into a mix. Although a high-end words, a series of provisions issued, but everyone's life still goes on, carbon emissions seem to be far away from us.

Carbon emissions seem to be very close to us again.

From our daily clothing, food, shelter and transportation, to the water we drink every day, the clothes we wear, and the means of transportation, nothing can be separated from carbon emissions. In particular, when we were all surprised when Tesla, Inc. made a profit of $1.58 billion by selling carbon points in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 166%, we found that carbon emissions could also be traded and could make money.

So knowing that the trading system is located in Shanghai and the registration system in Hubei's national carbon emissions trading market will be launched by the end of June, it is an important step for China to further mature the carbon trading market.

But out of curiosity, I can't help but wonder that only the power generation industry has landed in the trading center this time, not only without cars, but also without construction, steel and other industries. Automobile is not only the top priority to support the whole industry, but also an important source of carbon emissions, why it has not yet entered the trading of carbon emissions rights.

How far are cars from carbon emissions trading?

What does the national carbon emissions trading market mean?

Since the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, it has agreed on carbon dioxide emission rights as a commodity, thus forming the trading of carbon dioxide emission rights. Countries in the States parties take reducing carbon emissions as the ultimate goal to establish their own carbon trading markets.

Founded in 2003, the Chicago Climate Exchange is the world's first legally binding greenhouse gas emissions registration, reduction and trading platform based on international rules, but the largest, largest and most mature carbon emissions trading market in the world originated from the European Union carbon emissions trading system in 2005, which is also known as EU-ETS. As a carbon trading mechanism market based on EU decrees and national legislation, ETS is the most successful carbon trading mechanism market at present.

In terms of market size, according to Rufter's assessment of global carbon trading volume and carbon prices, the carbon trading volume of the EU carbon trading system is about 169 billion euros, accounting for 87 per cent of the global carbon market share. In terms of emission reduction effect, by 2019, EU carbon emissions have been reduced by 23% compared with 1990.

At present, there are 20 carbon markets operating in the world, accounting for 37 per cent of global GDP and covering 8 per cent of global emissions. So far, it has been included in the industrial, electric power, aviation, transportation, construction, waste and forestry sectors. As the country with the largest carbon emissions in the world, it is also urgent for China to establish a carbon emissions trading market.

In fact, carbon emissions trading is really far away from us, so far that we do not even know that it has been tried out for 10 years.

In fact, since 2011, our country has gradually launched carbon trading pilot projects in eight cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hubei, Guangdong, Shenzhen and Sichuan, to include industries and enterprises with large carbon emissions into carbon trading. It covers more than 20 industries and nearly 3000 key emission enterprises, covering a total of 440 million tons of carbon emissions, with a cumulative transaction value of about 10.47 billion yuan. It is still negligible compared to the trading volume of carbon emissions rights in EU countries.

The ultimate goal of the carbon market is to promote energy conservation and emission reduction of enterprises through market means, and to upgrade the industrial structure, which will inevitably bring additional costs to enterprises and cause huge operating pressure at the initial stage of transformation. As far as the power industry is concerned, the electricity price is controlled by the state and cannot be set at will, and enterprises are unable to transfer costs by raising product prices, which brings great challenges to the profitability of enterprises and leads to the resistance of emission companies to the work of carbon emission reduction.

So in December 2017, the NDRC issued the National carbon emissions Trading Market Construction Plan (Power Generation Industry), announcing that it would establish a national carbon emissions trading system with the power industry as a pilot project. give more benefits to carbon reduction so as to promote the whole carbon reduction into a virtuous circle.

Why the power industry? It is important to know that China's power generation industry accounts for about 40% of the country's carbon emissions, and electricity, as an industry strictly regulated by the state, is more likely to be regulated by policies. Therefore, it is urgent to reduce carbon in the power industry.

After the power industry, it is expected that during the 14th five-year Plan period, it will be gradually incorporated into steel, petrochemical, chemical, building materials, non-ferrous, aviation and other high-carbon emission industries. The research shows that expanding the industry coverage of the carbon market is conducive to expanding the scale of the carbon market, reducing the carbon price and reducing the carbon emission reduction cost of the whole society.

However, the construction of the market is just the beginning, and the extent to which carbon emissions trading can play a role is closely related to the design of the national carbon market mechanism. among them, the total amount of carbon emission quota, the distribution of initial carbon emission quota and industry coverage have an important impact on carbon trading price and market scale, emission reduction cost and emission reduction effect.

There has been no shortage of negative material in history, even the current relatively successful EU carbon trading system.

In 2009, Spain bought 6 million euros worth of carbon quotas from Estonia and several other Eastern European countries, one of which was to give Spanish companies access to a rail transit project in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. To this end, the Tallinn municipal government did not hesitate to overturn the results of previous public bidding, depriving Chinese, German and other companies of the right to fair competition, and the previously successful project of the China overseas Economic Cooperation Corporation was also invalidated. Even if German companies have filed a lawsuit against the European Union, it has come to nothing.

Therefore, the establishment of the national carbon emissions trading market is just the beginning, and its successful operation not only requires strict supervision, but also needs to coordinate the interests of many relevant subjects. If the policy is promoted too violently, it is easy to cause opposition from emission enterprises, which is bound to be disadvantageous to the successful operation of the carbon market; if the policy is too loose to create pressure on enterprises to reduce emissions, the carbon market will not be able to achieve its ultimate goal and lose its own value.

When we return to the establishment of China's carbon emissions trading market, it is not only of great significance for China's energy conservation and emission reduction, but also to further open China's carbon trading market to the global market.

"whether in the world or in China, we are ushering in a comprehensive era of carbon constraints, greenhouse gas emissions represented by carbon dioxide will become a scarce commodity with financial value, and energy conservation and emission reduction will also become the focus of responsibility and new competitiveness of enterprises." Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University, said.

With the steady development of carbon trading market, multinational corporations may be more willing to invest in economies with high requirements for carbon emission reduction under the constraints of carbon emission reduction. With the transformation of industrial structure and energy structure, it will reshape the industrial competitiveness and geopolitical pattern of various countries. The most important thing is that in the future, there is no guarantee that other countries will crack down on China's carbon emissions and set up green trade and investment barriers, and trade and investment frictions and disputes among relevant countries may intensify. A stable and healthy carbon trading market can greatly enhance the ability to resist such risks.

A car that has been "shut out"

Before explaining the distance between cars and carbon emissions, we must first know the difference between carbon credits and carbon emission rights.

We also know that carbon emissions right is the right to emit six kinds of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and carbon emissions trading is the right to emit carbon dioxide (take carbon dioxide as an example). What we are most familiar with is Tesla, Inc. 's profits from carbon points trading.

According to the latest regulations on car emissions in the European Union, automakers must reduce their average carbon emissions per kilometer from 118.5 grams to 95 grams by 2021, and those who fail to meet the standards will face a fine of 95 euros per gram per vehicle. So in order to balance the carbon dioxide emissions of its cars, FCA paid to incorporate Tesla, Inc. 's sales in Europe into the FCA sequence. To put it simply, the carbon emissions of FCA and Tesla, Inc. 's models are calculated together. Because Tesla, Inc. has no carbon emissions while driving, he is able to make FCA comply with the regulations. Honda also joined the Tesla, Inc. emission pool with FCA.

And Tesla, Inc., in the United States, relies on the California Act, known as CAF É, to classify similar models with different energy sources and give them points. Companies are forced to promote zero-emission cars by combining the proportion of zero-emission car sales and allowing credit line points to be traded. Car companies that sell in seven states, including California, must meet certain points standards before they can continue to sell, or face huge fines.

So Tesla, Inc. 's carbon credits are part of the value given by real regulations, and the other part is the "good treatment fee" earned by sharing the carbon emissions of each car in Europe for every 100 kilometers. In fact, the car itself has never entered the carbon emissions trading center.

At present, the target of the carbon trading market is the carbon dioxide emissions (T) generated by enterprises in the process of production and operation, combined with the automobile industry is the game at the level of automobile manufacturing, but in fact, automobile manufacturing is not the focus of carbon emissions.

"I think it's a normal thing." Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National passenger car Information Association, said in response to questions raised by Auto. "because the automobile industry is not the focus of energy conservation and emission reduction, ah, the total amount of emission reduction in the automobile manufacturing industry is objectively very small, and the impact on carbon emissions is also very small, so it is certain that it will not be included in the core leading industries of carbon emission reduction in the manufacturing industry, such as steel, cement, and so on. These are major industries."

The car industry does not need to be involved at the moment, so do cars need to be in the sequence of carbon trading?

In 2019, China's road traffic carbon emissions accounted for 14% of the country, and there is a rising trend. If you want to reach a carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutralization in 2060, automobile emission reduction must be an important plate. Carbon trading, as a means to reduce carbon trading, can not only reduce emissions, but also increase the interests of leading emission reduction enterprises.

From making money by building cars and selling cars to making money by selling carbon emissions, the addition of carbon trading can promote the industry to develop in the general direction of reducing carbon emissions, so the answer must be needed. On January 12, 2019, Wan Gang, vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, said on People's Daily that industrial policies such as fuel consumption standards and double credits should be strictly implemented and timely transformed into a carbon trading mechanism to enhance the endogenous driving force for automobile companies to develop new energy vehicles.

But cars have never been the object of carbon trading.

Zhou Fugeng, a deputy to the National people's Congress, said that China's carbon trading market system has been basically formed, but the automobile and road transportation industry has not yet been really included in the national carbon trading market. The important reason lies in four points.

First, a fair, fair and open price system has not yet been established.

Second, the carbon trading market lacks detailed rules and regulations and legal supervision.

Third, the carbon trading market is volatile and is still in its infancy.

Fourth, the carbon trading system of automobile and road transportation industry has not been established, and the top-level design, quota allocation, technical support, energy consumption statistics and work coordination need to be improved.

Not only that, the application of the double points policy also makes automobile carbon trading a difficult point.

For example, in order to promote the healthy development of energy conservation, environmental protection and new energy vehicle industry, draw lessons from the legislative experience and practices of the United States and Europe and other countries on the average fuel consumption of automobile enterprises and the management laws and regulations of new energy vehicles, and combined with the reality of China's automobile industry, the relevant departments of our country have formulated a double integral policy.

The target of the carbon trading market is the carbon dioxide emissions (T) produced by enterprises in the process of production and operation, while the double integral management focuses on the management of vehicle certification, the fuel consumption score is the product of the difference between the actual value of the enterprise's average fuel consumption and the standard value and the output (g / 100km vehicle), and the new energy points come from the new energy models produced or imported.

Take the closing price of carbon emissions trading rights in Shanghai on May 14 as an example, while the integral trading price of new energy in 2020 is expected to be 1000-3000 yuan / min, which is much higher than the carbon trading price. Even if the target dimension is opened, according to the European highest passenger vehicle carbon emission standard 95 g/km in 2021, the cost of reducing emissions per 10, 000 kilometers is only about 40 yuan. If the two are connected, it may lead to a substantial reduction in the compliance cost of automobile manufacturing enterprises, which is far lower than the cost of technological upgrading, which is not conducive to the improvement of industrial technology level and high-quality development.

There is no regulatory support, no LCA life cycle assessment, the most important thing is that companies do not have subjective thinking to actively reduce emissions, it can be said that it is even more difficult for cars to enter carbon trading.

Double points or carbon trading?

In 2018, Mahle Mahler Group made a report that, taking a compact intermediate car such as the Golf as an example, the production of a golf car emits 5 tons of carbon dioxide. Assuming that the vehicle life span is 10 years, driving 15000 kilometers per year, and the average carbon emissions per kilometer is 175g, then the total carbon dioxide emissions from car production to final phase-out 10 years later is about 31.3tons.

72kWh battery pack manufacturing carbon emissions are estimated at 12.6t, coupled with the 5 t carbon emissions of manufacturing vehicles, according to the China Federation of Electric Power Enterprises estimated carbon dioxide emissions per unit of power generation in 2019 about 577g / kWh, 15 kilowatt-hours per 100 km, and then with the same algorithm, the total carbon emissions in 10 years reached 30.57t, the result is not much different from that of fuel vehicles.

Especially when China has become the world's highest-selling electric car market for many years, carbon emissions have not declined. 400 billion of subsidies have made China's new energy vehicles a leader in the industry, but carbon emissions have not been reduced at all.

We admit that Mahle's algorithm is inaccurate, and China's carbon emissions cannot be pulled down by new energy vehicles whose market share has only just reached 10%, but we need to make sure that we cannot blindly develop new energy vehicles, and it is also necessary to develop new energy vehicles with the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

As mentioned above, China currently uses a double-points policy to regulate the automobile industry, reducing fuel consumption per 100 kilometers per vehicle on the one hand and setting up points for new energy vehicles on the other.

In April and September this year, the double points policy released the actual data for the first time. FAW-Volkswagen ranks last with an average fuel consumption of 5.87L per 100 km, while its target is 5.3L. Is this data poor? If the internal combustion engine is used as the standard, it certainly does not count, but new energy models are also calculated in terms of average fuel consumption.

According to GB/T 19233-2008 "fuel consumption Test method for Light vehicles", the consumption of new energy models is zero. For example, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. relied on the efforts of Jianghuai New Energy to reduce the group's average fuel consumption of 100 kilometers to 3.47L.

Do you know what the problem is? As long as you have a new energy model, the fuel consumption of each car can be reduced per 100 kilometers, and it is easy to meet the standard. In fact, this set of policies is not aimed at reducing emissions from internal combustion engines, but to vigorously develop energy models as the ultimate goal. Not to mention the points of new energy vehicles, referring to the coffee law, give new energy vehicles more benefit value.

The double points policy is not so much energy saving and emission reduction as finding the biggest "excuse" for China's automobile energy transformation.

The current 2025 CAFE target regulations in China and Europe are based on the study of automotive low-carbon development trends based on the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, calculated from the perspective of TTW (Tank to wheel fuel tank to wheel). Fuel consumption is calculated by fuel vehicles, and electric vehicles are in accordance with zero emissions, which is contrary to the goal of rapidly reducing fuel consumption in the development trend of internal combustion engine technology. The real result is to deliberately make the enterprise unable to meet the regulatory objectives with pure internal combustion engine vehicles, and then be forced to build electric vehicles calculated according to the "zero fuel consumption" regulations to dilute the enterprise fuel consumption.

Europe plans to amend regulations in 2023 to address this contradiction, based on the WLTP operating mode regulatory approach based on the "well-to-wheel" (WTW: Well To Wheel) life-cycle carbon emission algorithm. And China should also follow the WTW life-cycle carbon emission algorithm to reduce carbon emissions.

It should include not only the study of carbon emissions in the use of automotive products, but also the carbon emissions in the manufacturing process of automotive products and the corresponding carbon emissions of materials used in the manufacture of automotive products. No one cares about carbon emissions in the Ningde era, which is the biggest problem.

So double points or carbon trading, in the short term, double points can still restrict the industry, but in the long run, carbon emissions trading must be more conducive to enterprises, national energy conservation and emission reduction and enhance the status of the industry.

"the new carbon emission policy will also become the third chain of the new energy vehicle development policy chain after subsidies and double points, which is a more market-oriented management policy." Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100, once told reporters, "calculating the amount of automobile carbon emissions will form a strong incentive for low-carbon, zero-emission vehicles." One of the most important functions of the policy is to allow cross-industry carbon trading, which means that high-carbon industries other than fuel vehicles will pay for zero and low carbon emissions of cars. "

At the current stage, the goal of the double points policy is to promote the scale of new energy vehicles and synchronously reduce the average fuel consumption of passenger vehicles, while the main purpose of the carbon trading mechanism is to reduce the overall carbon emissions of the industry. In the long run, the long-term goal of developing new energy vehicles will not waver. Therefore, on the basis of combining the development trend of the passenger car industry, determine the phased goal of the double points policy, and evaluate when to achieve the unity with the carbon market management goal.

From the perspective of the policy environment, in order to improve the relevant management and punishment measures of the automobile industry, carbon trading regulations need to be formally issued as a superior law. Also need to establish a national unified market, covering more industries, when the smooth and stable operation of the national carbon market, with sufficient policy management response and management object flexibility compliance, and then consider the introduction of carbon emissions.

According to the "China Automobile low carbon Action Plan Research report 2020" released by China Automotive data Co., Ltd., although the carbon emissions of passenger vehicles in China have decreased year by year from 2010 to 2019, they are still as high as 212.2gC02e/km in 2019, and there is still a long way to go for China's passenger vehicles to reduce emissions.

China does need to reduce carbon emissions, but not at the expense of the speed of development, the transition from double points to carbon trading, in fact, Chinese cars are also thinking about how to reduce carbon emissions. So Greta Greta Thunberg, a Swedish "green girl" who ignores the fact that per capita carbon emissions are low, bombards China with the highest carbon emissions in the world, obviously with deliberate hostility.

Nietzsche once said that man is the same as a tree, and the more he yearns for the sunshine above, the more its roots reach out to the dark ground. This is especially true in the development of society. But for China, even if we develop rapidly, we still have the ability and determination not to reach into the dark underground, but to create a unique route that belongs to China.