Research On Carbon Currency

Climate change is a common problem faced by human beings all over the world.The El Nino events caused by global warming take place frequently.It is of great importance and urgency to take effective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The low-carbon economy investment and financing mechanism is an important means for reducing the greenhouse gas emission.It promotes green and sustainable development of the global economy through the low-carbon financing,carbon trading,carbon derivatives trading and other ways.The credit and monetization degree of the carbon emission permit,the core target of low-carbon economy investment and financing,has gradually increased,and the rudimentary form of carbon currency has taken shape in some countries and regions.In recent years,some scholars have put forward the concept and function of the carbon currency from the point of view of international currency,believing that the carbon currency is a kind of global system to promote the green economic development.Based on the perspective of complementary currency,this paper analyzes the properties and functions of carbon currency,as well as the supply and demand of carbon currency and the operation mechanism of carbon currency.It analyzes the influence of carbon currency on macro-economy,and discusses the motivation and path of the internationalization development of carbon currency,and its complementary role to the international monetary system.It expounds the evolution process of the carbon currency,and puts forward some suggestions on the operating mechanism of carbon currency,the financial regulation and supervision of carbon currency and the response to the internationalization of carbon currency.The carbon currency is a standardized unit with both commodity and credit properties,which is issued under the greenhouse gas emission reduction program,and can be used for exchange,storage as well as debit and credit.The carbon currency has the characteristics of the universal equivalent.Compared with a single commodity currency basket and a single credit currency anchor,the carbon currency has the advantages.The carbon currency has the functions of money.As a measure of value and means of payment,the carbon currency can measure and pay for the ecological added value of the goods.The carbon currency represents social mutual credit,and its historical responsibility is to supplement the resource allocation failure of the official currency in some specific fields.The best choice of the carbon currency system is to complement it in parallel with the official currency as a supplement currency.The main motivations for people to possess the carbon currency include:(1)to meet the needs of the ecological compensation for carbon emissions in production and living consumption;(2)to meet the needs of commodity exchange in production and daily life;(3)to meet the need of investment income of those products of low-carbon economy investment and financing.The demand for carbon currency is a kind of derived demand and demand for rights.The quantity of supply of carbon currency includes five levels:(1)the basic currency based on the carbon quota budget;(2)the narrow-sense carbon currency included emission reduction projects;(3)the broad-sense carbon currency after realizing the ecological compensation mechanism;(4)the broad-sense credit carbon currency containing loan mechanism;(5)the fifth level of carbon currency containing the regulatory mechanism.The global carbon emission reduction targets,economic activities,carbon emission reduction costs and other related factors all have an impact on the supply and demand of the carbon currency.The operating mechanism of carbon currency system mainly includes issuing mechanism,circulation mechanism,ecological compensation mechanism and regulatory mechanism.The carbon currency is created in the ways: the carbon quota allocation mechanism;the carbon emission reduction project mechanism;based on the carbon footprint reduction action mechanism;and Quasi Money issuing mechanism.The ecological compensation mechanism is the characteristic of carbon currency different from the official currency,and it is an important way to realize the greenhouse gas emission reduction and ecological resource allocation.The transverse and longitudinal circulation domains of the carbon currency are not complete.Carbon currency platforms such as carbon inclusive system play an important role in realizing the development of the circulation domain of carbon currency from the production field to the consumption field.The carbon currency will promote the transformation of traditional industry to the service industry with lower carbon emission,and the industrial structure will become rationalized and advanced day by day,so as to realize the low-carbon development of economy.The carbon currency can promote countries and regions to use the clean energy such as hydropower,wind power and solar energy instead of the fossil energy such as coal and oil in the countries or regions,so as to promote the development of clean energy consumption structure.The carbon currency has a certain impact on the greenhouse gas emission reduction,and its promoting effect is related to the binding force of low-carbon policies and means.The stronger the binding force of low-carbon policies is,the more significant the promoting effect will be.Under the background of economic globalization,the carbon market link provides a practice basis for the development of internationalization of carbon currency.The internationalization of carbon currency can provide the basis for the reconstruction of the international monetary system,promote the fairness and consistency of reserve assets,improve the disequilibrium of balance of payments of carbon emissions caused by carbon leakage,and promote the low-carbon development of the global economy.The establishment of the Bretton Woods system of carbon currency and carbon market club is the path for the further internationalization of the carbon currency.The evolution process of the carbon currency will go through four stages: ―single trading of carbon credit--carbon credit trading with multiple trading mechanisms coexisting--carbon credit integration with multiple mechanisms--monetization carbon credit system‖.The top-level design of the operating mechanism of carbon currency should establish a carbon budget-based issuance preparation,allow the coexistence of multi-level carbon currency issuance mechanisms,build a thorough circulation domain of carbon currency,cultivate specialized service institutions,as well as improve other related technical services.Therefore,China should establish a unified carbon market as soon as possible,improve the market operation mechanism,enhance the carbon pricing efficiency,as well as promote the unification of the quality and quantity standards of carbon money.We should deal with the cooperative and competitive relationship between the carbon currency and the official currency,as well as establish a risk early warning system and management and control system,so as to advance the issuing capacity of the carbon money and the discourse power of international carbon money.