Legal Review of Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification Mechanisms of China’s Emission Trading Systems

The fake greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data collected by monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) mechanisms of China’s pilot and national emission trading systems (ETSs) are criticized broadly. However, as ETS plays a growing role in controlling emissions in China, China is constantly improving its regulation designs of the MRV mechanisms for ETS. Are there still problems in the regulation designs of China's current MRV mechanism hindering the MRV mechanism to attain real and accurate emission data? From a legal perspective, the paper discusses the questions by taking into account the relevant regulations as well as practical evidence. The overall purpose of the paper is to show the arrangements of MRV mechanisms of China’s ETSs and expose the issues existing in the relevant regulations.