National Development and Reform Commission

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By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) have ordered local authorities to stop construction of coal-fired power plants in 13 provinces where capacity already outstrips demand. A further 15 provinces will be required to delay construction of previously approved coal-fired power plants. These provinces include Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, home to much of China’s coal industry.

These orders reinforce China’s efforts to transition towards a lower-carbon economy – an economy no longer heavily dependent on coal power.

By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s central economic planning agency, issued several guidance documents relating to the upcoming national Emissions Trading System (ETS) in January this year. The documents, released in Chinese only, include: the forms that companies will be required to use to report their annual carbon emissions to NDRC;  the list of industries that will be subject to the ETS; the requirements for companies and personnel involved in the verification process; and a verification reference guide.

These guidance documents build on the preliminary rules for the ETS that NDRC released in December 2014, and represent another step in the development of the ETS, which President Xi Jinping has announced will be launched in 2017.