Eleven ministries jointly issued the guideline on building a holistic standard system to achieve China’s carbon peaking and neutrality goals. The standard system contains four primary systems covering general standards, carbon emission reduction standards, carbon removal standards and market mechanism standards. The aim of the guideline is to address key issues of accurate calculation and reduction of carbon emissions. This move shall advance emission accounting and trading to achieve emission reduction and neutrality by leveraging the role of the market.
In addition, the policy underlines international cooperation in standard development by proposing four areas of work: (1) establishment of a working group for international standards cooperation, (2) strengthening international exchange through cooperation, for instance, with IPCC, ISO, IEC, ITU and other institutions as well as with countries along the “Belt and Road Initiative”, and promoting dialogue under the framework of BRICS and APEC, (3) active participation of China in the development of international standards in key areas such as GHG monitoring and accounting, energy transition and green finance, (4) supporting the alignment of standards by conducting comparative analysis of domestic and international standards on carbon compliance and encouraging the translation of applicable international standards into Chinese. At the same time, the country aims to systematically promote the compilation of foreign language versions of Chinese national, industry and local standards.
