Market participants can expect the initiative’s proposals to offer guidance on setting targets for emissions reduction and decarbonisation.
By Paul A. Davies, Michael D. Green, and James Bee
On 12 January 2021, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) published its “SBTi Climate Action in 2022” proposals (the 2022 Proposals), highlighting the areas that the organisation is seeking to work on and develop throughout 2022. The SBTi is a partnership between the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), the UN Global Compact, the World Resources Institute, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, which seeks to mobilise the private sector to reduce its carbon footprint by defining, promoting, and verifying best practices in corporate emissions reduction strategies in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times.
The SBTi continued to grow rapidly throughout 2021, with more and more companies setting SBTi-aligned or verified targets and stakeholders increasingly expecting corporate climate commitments and targets to be aligned with SBTi. As a result, the 2022 Proposals, by identifying the key areas which SBTi is seeking to develop this year, may considerably impact a large number of companies looking to set climate targets.
On December 8, 2021, President Biden issued an 
Less than one year ago, the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, as well as the mayor of the District of Columbia, announced that their respective jurisdictions would establish the Transportation & Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) and released a memorandum of understanding (MOU) describing the agreed-upon principles for adoption and implementation of a regional program aimed at reducing carbon emissions from the transportation sector. But in the past two weeks, three of the four jurisdictions that signed the MOU have pulled out, effectively terminating the TCI-P.
Nearly four years after China’s national emissions trading scheme (ETS) was announced in late 2017, trading of emissions quotas officially commenced on July 16. The start of trading represents a significant step in China’s adoption of market-based mechanisms for addressing climate change, while also signifying a major opportunity for businesses able to achieve meaningful reductions.
Tucked inside the US$900 billion COVID-19 relief package signed into law on December 27, 2020, is a regulatory opportunity for the climate-focused Biden Administration: the 
On January 1, 2021, the long-awaited China Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) commenced operation, with 2,225 coal-fired power plants participating. Under this new ETS, China’s power operators will have to buy emissions permits if their coal plant exceeds carbon intensity benchmarks, giving power operators an incentive to improve efficiency. Since 2011, China has developed pilot emissions trading platforms in nine cities and provinces, paving the way for a national trading scheme that was first announced in 2017, along with an emissions trading market development plan for the power generation sector. After almost four years of development, the first annual compliance cycle officially began on January 1. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has published several policy documents on the national ETS that establish regulatory authority and specify general rules for key areas of market operation and design, including the Carbon Emissions Rights Trading Regulations (Trial), which was published in November 2020.
On 14 December 2020, the UK Government published its Energy White Paper (the Paper). The Paper builds on previous green economy plans, setting them “in a long-term strategic vision, […] consistent with net zero emissions by 2050”.
On 22 September 2020, during a speech before the UN General Assembly, President Xi Jinping announced China’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2060 and reaffirmed China’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to peak its carbon emissions by 2030. China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and emitted approximately 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, according to the Global Carbon Project. Given this, China’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2060 would significantly reduce global GHG emissions and set the stage for China’s development of a green economy.
On 27 August 2020, the European Commission (the Commission) launched a public consultation on a possible proposal on substantiating green claims about products or services. This follows on from the Commission’s Inception Impact Assessment Roadmap on potential regulation of green claims. The consultation period for this Roadmap closed on 31 August 2020, so the Commission is already moving ahead with the consultation on the proposal itself. This initiative is another step toward meeting the objectives identified in the European Green Deal, pursuant to which the Commission committed itself to making the EU climate neutral by 2050.