Development trends of carbon neutralization: the central economic work conference proposed to steadily promote carbon neutralization and ensure energy supply. From December 8 to 10, the CPC Central Committee held an economic work conference, which called for “correctly understanding and grasping the carbon peak and carbon neutralization”. The gradual withdrawal of traditional energy should be based on the safe and reliable substitution of new energy. Based on the basic national conditions dominated by coal, we should pay attention to the clean and efficient utilization of coal, increase the consumption capacity of new energy, and promote the optimal combination of coal and new energy. New renewable energy and raw material energy will not be included in the total energy consumption control, and conditions will be created to realize the transformation from “dual control” of energy consumption to “dual control” of total carbon emission and intensity as soon as possible. The central economic conference focused on the need to steadily promote the clean utilization of coal and electricity based on China’s long-term dominant national conditions of coal and electricity, and it is expected that more attention will be paid to the clean and efficient utilization of coal in the future. In addition, the new renewable energy and raw material energy will not be included in the total energy consumption control, which will further facilitate the green power market transaction, and the demand of downstream enterprises to buy green power will further expand.
Development trends of green power: gradually expand power market transactions and promote the development of green power. On December 8, the national development and Reform Commission and other departments issued the notice on the implementation plan for implementing the requirements of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization goal and promoting the green and high-quality development of new infrastructure such as data center and 5g, which requires to improve the use level of green power in data center and promote the nearby consumption of renewable energy through self built special lines or bilateral transactions. In addition, the scheme proposes to support the national hub node to make a pilot in the standards, mechanisms and technologies of the data center, gradually expand the power market-oriented transaction, and improve the supply guarantee capacity of power, especially renewable energy, to the data center and 5g network, which will further facilitate the development of green power transaction.
ESG developments: Alibaba established an ESG working group and promised to release ESG reports every year since 2022. On December 17, Alibaba released the Alibaba carbon neutralization action report, proposing to achieve carbon neutralization of its own operations by 2030 and halve the carbon emission intensity of upstream and downstream value chains by 2030, taking the lead in realizing carbon neutralization of cloud computing. According to statistics, Alibaba’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 were 9.514 million tons, including 5.294 million tons of indirect greenhouse gas emissions upstream and downstream of the value chain, accounting for 55.64%. This part of carbon emissions was mainly affected by the upstream and downstream of the value chain, especially the emissions of commodities and the process of use and disposal. In order to ensure the realization of the carbon reduction goal, Alibaba has established a new three-tier governance structure, a sustainable development committee at the board level and an ESG working group at the business unit level. Alibaba promises to further improve information and data disclosure. From 2022, it will issue ESG reports every year to disclose specific annual progress, and all report contents will be verified by audit institutions.
Trading dynamics of the national carbon market: the national carbon market has been online for 6 months, and the trading volume has exceeded 100 million tons. According to the Shanghai Environment Group Co.Ltd(601200) energy exchange, on the morning of December 15, 2021, the trading volume of the national carbon emission trading market exceeded 100 million tons on the 102nd trading day. By the end of the trading day, the cumulative trading volume had reached 107 million tons and the turnover was 4.426 billion yuan. Since November, the trading in the national carbon market has become increasingly active. In the past two weeks, the highest price of CEA is 44.22 yuan / ton and the lowest price is 41.46 yuan / ton. The trading volume on two days exceeded 10 million, of which the trading volume on December 16 was 20.4809 million tons, a new high since the opening of the market.
