Opinion: China’s Carbon Pricing System Could Become Reference Point for World

On Aug. 8, 2008, thousands of people were in Beijing for the landmark Olympic Games. Not me. I was heading to China for an entirely different landmark: the public announcement of the Tianjin Climate Exchange (TCX), China’s first carbon market pilot program, a joint venture I helped spearhead with the China Asset Management Corp. of PetroChina and the city of Tianjin as a joint venture with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world’s first integrated cap-and-trade system, founded by eminent economist Richard L. Sandor, well known in China for his work in financial innovation and known worldwide as “the father of financial futures.”