China rolls out product carbon footprint directive in bid to meet global standards, wary of steep foreign taxes

State planner NDRC sets new policy to calculate, label carbon footprints for ‘key products’ as EU moves toward carbon border tax

Beijing faces ‘urgent need’ to manage carbon accounting as other countries look to impose new standards, expert says

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China has made ambitious pledges to
achieve peak carbon emissions by 2030, and to be carbon neutral by 2060. Photo: AP

Published: 7:21pm, 23 Nov 2023Updated: 8:48pm, 23 Nov 2023

China has pledged to build a carbon footprint database and introduce ways to calculate carbon footprints for 50 products by 2025, in a renewed push to reach President Xi Jinping’s ambitious pledge of reaching peak carbon emissions before 2030.

Although the pledge was made public on Wednesday, it was dated November 13, just ahead of Xi’s highly anticipated summit with his US counterpart Joe Biden, where the two leaders reached a range of agreements, including continuing to cooperate on climate change.

Observers said the policy signalled that China wanted its methods to catch up with other world powers to calculate carbon footprints on the product side, especially as the European Union’s new carbon border measures went into effect last month.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, unveiled a directive on its website on Wednesday on building the country’s product carbon footprint system.

The document is aimed at developing an internationally recognised system for counting the full life cycle of a product’s carbon footprint, which includes measuring the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by a product.

The measures were aimed at continually reducing a product’s carbon footprints, a NDRC spokesperson said in a report by state media Xinhua on Thursday.

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China rolls out product carbon footprint directive in bid to meet global standards, wary of steep foreign taxes

State planner NDRC sets new policy to calculate, label carbon footprints for ‘key products’ as EU moves toward carbon border tax Beijing faces ‘urgent need’ to manage carbon accounting as other countries look to impose new standards, expert says

State planner NDRC sets new policy to calculate, label carbon footprints for ‘key products’ as EU moves toward carbon border tax

Beijing faces ‘urgent need’ to manage carbon accounting as other countries look to impose new standards, expert says