Actions applied by Chinese shipping companies under greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme

Countries present at the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009 have discussed on the standard of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but failed to reach an agreement. As the global climate problem turns to be severe, countries in Annex 1 in the Kyoto Protocol and European Union (EU) began to push the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to put the issue of reducing GHG emissions in shipping industry on the agenda and introduce a specific standard by 2011. Moreover, in March 2009, the State Council of the People's Republic of China has issued a strategic policy on promoting Shanghai to be an international financial and shipping centre. Under such circumstance, this paper applied cost-benefit-analysis to analyse the feasibility of GHG emissions trading and raised proposals for corresponding actions for shipping companies' better adaption to the development of shipping industry and gain a favourable position in the carbon credits exchange market.