Factors affecting the pilot trading market of carbon emissions in China

Abstract

Climate change and carbon emissions are major problems which are attracting worldwide attention. China has had its pilot carbon emission trading markets in seven regions for more than 3 years. What affects carbon emission trading market in China is a big question. More attention is paid to how China promotes the carbon emission trading schemes in the whole country. This paper addresses concerns about the functioning of carbon emission trading schemes in seven pilot regions and takes the weekly data from November 25, 2013, to March 19, 2017. We employ a vector autoregressive model to study how coal price, oil price and stock index have affected the carbon price in China. The results indicate that carbon price is mainly affected by its own historical price; coal price and stock index have negative effects on carbon price, while oil price has a negative effect on carbon price during the first 3 weeks and then has a positive effect on carbon price. More regulatory attention and economic measures are needed to improve market efficiency, and the mechanisms of carbon emission trading schemes should be improved.