Photo/Illutration In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China’s Shanxi Province. (AP Photo)

BEIJING--China is targeting the launch of a nationwide emissions trading scheme during the period from 2021 to 2025, its top climate official said on Wednesday, signaling another delay for the long-awaited carbon trading platform.

Technical problems and concerns over the accuracy and transparency of emissions data have dogged the scheme, whose first phase, covering the power sector, had been expected to launch this year.

“China’s carbon market will evolve from regional pilot programs to a national trading scheme and expand from single sector to multiple industries,” Li Gao, the head of the environment ministry’s climate change office, told a briefing.

This included online trading and stable operation of the national emissions trading scheme (ETS), he added.

“The (2021-2025) 14th five-year plan is a big development period for the establishment of carbon trading,” Gao said.

The national trading system was originally pledged by President Xi Jinping ahead of the Paris climate accord in 2015.

In 2017, China announced the launch of the national ETS, designed to include all major industrial sectors, but there has been no trading yet, and relevant regulations have not been issued.

By August, China’s pilot ETS in seven regions covered nearly 3,000 industrial emitters and traded 406 million tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas, the ministry of ecology and environment (MEE) said.

Once the power sector starts trading, China’s national scheme is expected to eclipse that of the European Union to become the world’s largest carbon trading scheme.

Li added that the ministry was still revising the draft plan of emission allowance allocations, which had been modified to reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, following feedback from local government and electricity generators.

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