An automobile insurer from Shanghai has become the first Chinese company to become carbon neutral by purchasing credits in the country's fledgling voluntary carbon trading market.
Tianping Auto Insurance paid Rmb277,699 ($40,627) on Wednesday for 8,026 tons of carbon credits accumulated by commuters during last year's Beijing Olympics. They were auctioned through the Beijing Environment Exchange.
The deal signals the growing potential for carbon trading in China, which is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases but so far does not have a domestic carbon market.
As in Europe and the US, trading in voluntary emission reductions is only one of many segments of the carbon market.
China has become the largest supplier to foreign investors of carbon credits from projects that have been certified to reduce carbon emissions under the clean development mechanism since 2007.
But as a developing country, China is not required to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol, so there is no domestic demand for mandatory carbon credits.
However, Beijing, as it prepares for the Copenhagen meeting in December, which is due to decide on a successor to Kyoto, is considering introducing some commitment to limiting emissions.
In June, the state council, China's cabinet, said it would introduce targets for lower carbon emission intensity to its economic and social planning. The statement was widely seen as a hint that the next five year plan, covering 2011-15, will include a carbon intensity target.
That would trigger growth in voluntary carbon trading, climate change experts said.
"Responding to climate change is a task in which the whole society needs to be encouraged to participate, and using market mechanisms is one way of doing that," said an official at the climate change department of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's climate change policymaker.
What's this crap, Hyundai's moInca, sounds like more in car. No matter what it been called, Hyundai can't cheat money out of Chinese wallet with this crappy model. It is a hybrid which has new bora face and sonata ass.
Hyundai step down further more than expect. In the competitive car market, who can sell this crappy model for 110000RMB about 16100 USD, only Hyundai.
Chinese netizens describe it as the most ugly korean hybrid.
The deputy GM of Chery Sales, Zheng Zhaori and Yang Hongze explain Chery's plan of new products for next stage.
After Chery brought 3 brand-new logos in front of the market in the begining of this year, Chery still put the biggest value on it's old brand.
50% of 2009 sales (about 210,000 cars) depend on Chery itself, till now, its performance is better than expection. At the end of June 2009, Chery have sold 176,000 cars, so it's very easy to achieve the sales goal of this year. Zheng Zhaori said the sales will reach 300,000 cars positively.
Fulwin 2 - Chery A13 - is going to ran into the market November this year. As the latest compact car, Fulwin 2 is about 50,000-90,000RMB
Chery will import Tiggo DR from Italy.
As an export model to Italian auto market, Tiggo DR is a facelift version of Chery Tiggo in the same platform.
Chery QQ, the model bring applaud for Chery, is the right time to retire now. Chery is planning to upgrade it in the next year.
Chief policy makers said they are revising earlier targets to create a "greener" environment, adding that new jobs to support the new energy sources also would spur economic growth.
Xie Zhenhua, vice-minister in charge of climate change policy for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said last week that renewable energy is expected to account for 10 percent of the country's energy resources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020.
Zhang Xiaoqiang, the NDRC's vice-minister in charge of international cooperation, was more ambitious.
Zhang said recently that China could reach a renewable energy target of at least 18 percent by 2020.
"Personally, I think we could reach the target of having renewable sources make up 20 percent of total energy consumption," Zhang recently told the media in London.
Sun Qin, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, told China Business Weekly that China would soon announce the revised power supply capacity target for 2020 -- a target that might increase to 1,400 to 1,500 gigawatts, or gW, of energy.
The revised target, if approved by the central government, would represent nearly a 50 percent increase from the previous goal set by the government in 2007.
The potential buyer of General Motors Corp's Hummer division will begin formal talks with Chinese regulators on Monday in an effort to win approval for its acquisition, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery has agreed to buy the Hummer brand from the bankrupt U.S. automaker but state radio in China reported on Thursday that the country's top economic planning agency was likely to reject the bid.
A GM spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the Journal report while a Tengzhong spokeswoman said the Chinese company is working to get the deal done.
"We don't have a definitive agreement but we're developing our proposals with GM and Hummer and we'll continue to engage with the appropriate authorities in the appropriate manner," said Christina Stenson of the Brunswick Group, the public relations agency for Tengzhong.
Tengzhong's lack of experience and the gas-guzzling nature of Hummer's sport utility vehicles were cited as reasons for the expected opposition by the National Development and Reform Commission, the report said.
However, GM and Tengzhong have yet to formally present the deal to the Chinese regulators and the parties negotiating the deal have not been told it is in trouble, the Journal said, citing unidentified sources.
The Journal quoted one unidentified GM executive as saying talk that the deal would be blocked was not true and should be considered "pure speculation."
Executives from GM and Tengzhong met this week to firm up their plans and are operating under the assumption that the deal has a reasonable chance of getting approved, according to people familiar with the meeting, the Journal said.
GM said on June 2, the day after filing for bankruptcy, that it had tentatively agreed to sell the Hummer brand to Tengzhong, saying it expected the deal to close in the third quarter. GM officials said at the time that they saw no snag in closing the deal.
Based in the Chinese province of Sichuan, Tengzhong makes special-use vehicles, highway and bridge structural components, construction machinery and energy equipment.
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