China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Friday that it will continue to adopt a "zero-tolerance" policy towards data fabrication on carbon emissions, reiterating the country's resolve in cutting emissions in its effort to mitigate climate change.

During a regular news briefing on Friday, Xia Yingxian, director of the ministry's department of Climate Change responded to a reporter's question concerning the quality of carbon emission data in the country's carbon market, a trading system in which entities must purchase or trade allowances for the carbon emissions they produce in order to curb emissions.

China's Xinhua News Agency reported in September 2022 that the country's carbon market, which is still emerging, had not matured yet and cases of companies falsifying carbon emission data or underperforming their emission goals occurred from time to time, which attracted broad attention from the public.

Xia said that the ministry has taken a series of measures focused on improving the quality of carbon emission data since last year, stressing that data quality is the lifeline to ensure the healthy and orderly development of China's carbon market.

According to Xia, these measures involve legislation, law enforcement, technologies and other aspects.

"We have been working closely with the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to criminalize carbon emission data falsification," said Xia.

In August, China's Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly issued a document on the legal interpretation of laws applied in criminal cases in environment pollution, which stipulates that the sentencing of falsifying documentary evidence in the criminal law will be applied to agencies responsible for carbon emission data fraud. 

The ministry published a commentary afterwards, saying that the document provides legal basis for law enforcement in cracking down on environment data falsification. 

According to Xia, China currently has a three-tier supervision system for carbon emission data: state, provincial and city levels. His ministry has been offering assistance to both companies and law enforcement personnel to ensure data accuracy and effective oversight. Big data technologies have also been deployed to digitalize carbon emissions on a national scale, Xia said.

China launched its carbon market named the national emission trading scheme (ETS) in July 2021 as an important tool in achieving the country's climate goals announced by President Xi Jinping: to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060. 

Xia said the market has been developing steadily over the past two years, and his ministry is also working to include more enterprises in the market.

Officials also released an annual report on China's policy and actions in combating climate change in 2023 during the briefing, which showed that the country's carbon intensity, which evaluates the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced per unit of GDP, has dropped over 51 percent from 2005 to 2022. Consumption of non-fossil fuels climbed to 17.5 percent in the country's total energy use by the end of 2022, according to the report.

(Cover image via CFP)