Post Carbon Fellow David Fridley was quoted on Radio Free Asia on China’s new cap-and-trade carbon emissions plan.

From the article:

David Fridley, staff scientist for the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said the national program is starting with emissions from the three industries that are easiest to measure.

“It’s enormously more complicated to get accurate emissions measurements for a diverse industry such as petrochemicals or chemicals, since each plant may have a different mix of processing equipment and a number of boundary issues … as well,” Fridley said.

The trading system is expected to run on a trial basis until 2020 while the other sectors are eventually brought in, Fridley said by email.

“I don’t think the slow start is significant since carbon trading wasn’t designed to be the main tool to achieve emissions reductions but as a way to discover a price for carbon, at least initially,” he said.