I know it's too much heavy lifting for you to argu

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“They’re very serious. In some ways, they’re more serious than we are,” says John Gilleland, chief technology officer of Washington-based TerraPower, noting China’s rapid push for new infrastructure. He says China believes in climate change and wants to reduce the smog that’s choking its cities.


“They’re building nuclear plants like crazy,” says Gilleland, who attended the signing of the agreement Tuesday between his company and the China National Nuclear Corporation. He expects the new commercial “traveling wave” reactors, which burn fuel made from depleted uranium, will be built within 10 years.


—China’s embracing a global carbon pricing trend. China had previously indicated it would roll out a national cap-and-trade system, but it hadn’t given details. On Friday, it said the system would cover its electricity, steel, cement, and other industries.

It’s already been experimenting with carbon pricing. Since 2013, China launched seven regional pilots, which now comprise the world’s second-largest cap-and-trade system—after the European Union’s. Those pilots raise questions.


“It’s not transparent how the caps are set or adjusted” and very few trades have occurred so far, says Clayton Munnings, who’s studied China’s carbon trading as a research associate for Resources for the Future, a think tank. He says it’s too early to tell what impact they’ll have, especially since China is taking other steps to reduce air pollution.

Worldwide, the number of carbon pricing schemes has nearly doubled since 2012 and they now cover 23 cities and 40 countries, according to a September report by the World Bank. They include 17 cap-and-trade programs, including one begun this year in South Korea, as well as taxes on carbon emissions, which South Africa plans to impose next year.

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