“The lack of data from emission-limited enterprises also makes the analysis of China's carbon market difficult to quantify both at home and abroad, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the market.”

— Lin Jiaqiao, REEI

Although a unified national carbon trading market was officially launched in 2017, compared with the popular green financial market in the past two years, it is still in a tepid state, with feedback commenting on its "niche", "difficult to understand" and "small scale" characteristics. However, some institutions that tried to enter the market were stumped by problems such as inconsistent rules, excessive government intervention and failure to form a standardized market mechanism.

Therefore, Caixin Weekly released a cover report titled "Creation of the carbon market", trying to explore the problems associated with the carbon market. The report includes many practitioners, academics and experts’ interview, while Lin Jiaqiao, co-director of REEI was among them. He said compared to the EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) requirements that emission-limited enterprises need to disclose key information about its participation in the carbon market, including emission data, quota trading and compliance status, which is basically unavailable in the domestic carbon market. The unavailability of data from emission-limited enterprises also makes the analysis on China's carbon market difficult to quantify both at home and abroad, which challenges the long-term development of the market. In addition, appropriate information disclosure helps all sectors to supervise enterprises' emission reduction activities and ensure that their data are true and reliable.

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