China has realized that reducing green gas emissions will do more than just benefit its environment. It can also be good business -- the business of carbon trading. The idea is gaining popularity in China.

Recently an auto insurance company in Shanghai spent nearly 300,000 yuan on an 8000 ton carbon emission quota. The company says that's the amount of carbon dioxide it released during the Beijing Olympics. It marks the first voluntary carbon trade from an enterprise in China.

In carbon trading, carbon is given an economic value, allowing people, companies or nations to trade it. If a company buys carbon, it would be buying the rights to burn it. And a company selling carbon would be giving up its rights to do the same thing.

According to the UN, China owns one third of the world's total quota for sellable carbon. This number is set to increase to 41 percent by 2012. Many Chinese companies are making efforts to reduce carbon emissions and can sell carbon emission quotas to international buyers.

But carbon exchangers in China say the business is still in its preliminary stage.

Mei Dewen, General Manager of Beijing Environment Exchange said "Because of a lack of support for a carbon trade financial system, China's carbon trade is still in its infancy. It only concentrates on projects."

China now has carbon trade exchanges in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. But their business is limited to the exchange of pro-environment technology exchanges, and is far from carbon trade in the real sense.

(CCTV September 24, 2009)