China Beijing Environmental Exchange (CBEEX) is a corporate domestic and international environmental equity public trading platform initiated by the China Beijing Equity Exchange (CBEX) and authorized by the Beijing municipal government.
Background
Climate Crisis
A lot of environmental policies proposed by China come in response to the dangerous amount of emissions, especially from Carbon dioxide, their main greenhouse gas emitter. In 1980, China emitted less than 1.5 gigatons (Gt) of Carbon dioxide per capita from fossil fuels. Over the next 20 years, in conjunction with the economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping's rule, CO2 emissions rose by about 4% each year to around 3 Gts. per capita. From 2000 to 2012, the CO2 emissions rate more than doubled, and China started emitting over 9 Gts. per capita each year. While the rate slowed down over the next few years due to changes in the economy and some climate reform, emissions once again shot up to keep up with the demand for Air Conditioners. The main source of this CO2 is from coal. While China's use of oil, cement, and gas each contributed to less than 2 Gts. since 1980, coal has been responsible for over 2 Gts. of CO2 emissions in 2000 and peaked at almost 8 Gts. in the early 2010s. This mass production using coal dates back to the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-1990) where China's division of labor was based on what region specialized in. As a result, the provinces in the coastal central areas, which are more industrialized, were the main driving forces of China's economy. Particularly, the industries which use a lot of coal were the most successful, and coal consumption is often related to China's economic growth. Along with the economic growth rhetoric, other provinces, especially the undeveloped, started to adopt the industrial work ethic and along with it, more coal consumption. Unfortunately, because some of these underdeveloped provinces like Shaanxi and Sichuan do not specialize in industrial work, their production compared to central China is severely lacking when it comes to the economy. Therefore, there is an inefficient use of land resources, and with it, wasteful coal consumption.
Origin
CO2 emissions via coal consumption became a big focus in China's eleventh five-year plan (2006-2010). A promise in this plan was to reduce emissions with respect to GDP by 20%. One solution proposed was to establish the first Chinese emissions exchange in Tianjin in September 2008. By using the cap-and-trade model, the same molecules that created a climate crisis in China are the ones that will lead towards pollution reduction and environmental preservation while maintaining the growing Chinese economy. With the help of foreign exchanges such as the Chicago Climate Exchange and the European Climate Exchange (ECX), China had now become a major competitor in the Asian emissions market. Shortly before this, China introduced the China Beijing Environmental Exchange (CBEEX) as a general market for environmental equities. It would also adapt the goals set up by the Tianjin Climate Exchange and fulfill the environmental goals of the eleventh five-year plan.
Establishments
The Panda Standard
Along with BlueNext and other companies, the CBEEX launched the first standard to combat greenhouse gas emissions, namely CO2 emissions, at the Copenhagen Convention in late 2009. Its aim is to create new methods that support China through means environmentally, economically, legally, socially, and efficiently while giving full transparency and credibility within the Carbon market. They would achieve this by promoting the agriculture, forestry, and other land use sector (AFOLU) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to help the impoverished work under their projects and potentially scale to very efficient methods of a cleaner environment.
Projects
There are four main project types in which companies can earn credits through the Panda Standard. Below are some examples of each type.