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Chen, C., Yu, F., Zhang, Y., Liu, G., Wang, X., Zhang, K., Hu, J., Wang, L., Song, D., Hu, Y., Sun, F., Sun, D., & Ma, N. (2025). Empirical Assessment and Mechanism Analysis of the Emission Reduction Effects of Carbon Trading Pilot Policies. China Environmental Science, 45, 1674-1685. (In Chinese)
https://doi.org/10.19674/j.cnki.issn1000-6923.2025.0043

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: A Marxist Political Economy Analysis of China’s Emission Trading Scheme in Supporting Dual Carbon Goals

  AUTHORS: Ting Zhang, Xing Fang

  KEYWORDS: Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality, Marxist Political Economy, Carbon Market, New Quality Productive Forces

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Social Sciences, Vol.14 No.8, August 26, 2026

  ABSTRACT: Emission trading scheme (ETS) is a central market instrument for achieving China’s goals of peaking carbon emissions and reaching carbon neutrality. This paper briefly summarizes the transition from regional pilot programs to a unified national market and assesses how the system currently operates. Despite its expansion, the market continues to face limited liquidity, weak price discovery, and problems in allowance allocation. The paper then uses Marxist political economy to examine how emission rights acquire value as tradable commodities, how carbon pricing shapes the behavior of capital, and how emission rights function as production factors in the development of new quality productive forces. It argues that carbon pricing can direct investment toward greener production, while allowance trading can improve price discovery, allocate abatement resources more efficiently, and provide financing for low-carbon investment. Realizing these benefits will also require closer coordination between public oversight and market incentives, including a gradual shift from emissions-intensity targets to an aggregate cap. This paper further identifies persistent tensions between government and market, capital accumulation and ecological limits, and economic efficiency and distributional equity. Finally, this paper concludes with proposals to improve the development of the ETS market. The analysis presented in this paper could possibly provide guidelines to strengthen the contribution of carbon trading to China’s low-carbon transition within its socialist institutional framework.