In June 2021, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Research Center for Climate Change at Guangdong University of Technology jointly released this paper, as part of a larger project exploring Guangdong Province’s GHG emissions trading system. The paper was written with the support of Energy Foundation China.

It examines the progress of the trading scheme in reducing emissions, the key elements and characteristics of the provincial system, the challenges it faces and the prospects for it, and its coordination with China’s new national carbon market.

Identifying the role that the emissions trading system plays in the global effort to address climate change, the authors believe that lessons from the provincial system are likely to be useful in other jurisdictions within China.