Study On Carbon Allowance Allocation In Carbon Black Industry

Greenhouse gas emission has caused undeniable adverse impact onthe human society. Implementing carbon emissions trading which isbased on the “cap and trade” concept is economically effective to reduceoverall greenhouse gas emission. Scientific and rational carbon allowanceallocation mechanism is a key to a successful carbon emissions tradingsystem.Carbon black is an important chemical raw material. Carbon dioxideemits along with the carbon black production process. China is the No.1carbon black producer in the world, which has over10millions of tonscarbon dioxide emission annually. Thus carbon emission reduction incarbon black industry deserves necessary attention. Several carbon blackmanufacturing plants have been included in China’s regional carbonemissions trading pilot program which was started in2013. Likely thatmost of the carbon black manufacturers will be included in thenation-wide carbon emissions trading system, once it rolls out in future.Till now, there is no unified method for determining carbon allowanceallocation in carbon black industry in China. Compared with the“grandfathering” method been commonly used in China, industry orproduct based “benchmark” method is scientifically preferable. Sincebenchmark has been developed in Europe Union carbon emissionstrading system for carbon black industry, it is advised to use benchmarkmethod for carbon allowance allocation in China carbon black industry aswell. Statistic data for carbon emission intensity was barely available inChina’s carbon black industry. Considering the carbon emission profile, aswell as the correlation between energy intensity and carbon emissionintensity in carbon black industry, use current Chinese standard–TheNorm of Energy Consumption per Unit Product for Carbon Black, thisdissertation calculated carbon emission intensity respectively2.768t-CO2/t the entry level and2.062t-CO2/t the advanced level, which isadvised as benchmark values for carbon allowance allocation. Afterevaluating with the real emission from an example carbon black plant ofShanghai, it is confirmed that for one carbon black plant, carbon emissionintensity is relevant to its energy intensity, and the calculated carbonemission intensity could be referred as a good benchmark value forcarbon allowance allocation in China carbon black industry.