For a decade, local government agencies have been directly monitoring emissions from polluters.
Under such a program, a limit is set on emissions, and polluters can emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases only by obtaining permits.
For some pollutants, setting a cap on total emissions, while letting polluters buy and sell emission rights, is a cost-efficient way to reduce pollution.
After temporarily implementing stricter emissions standards and shutting down nearby industrial polluters, pollutant measurements between June and October 2008 showed reductions of 18 59% compared with pre-Olympics levels.
Xi vowed in 2015 to establish a nationwide cap-and-trade program that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allow polluters to buy and sell emission credits.
To do this will require tradeoffs on how to use funds raised from the sale of greenhouse-gas emission permits to polluters.
At the end of the meeting, the board adopted a state-of-the-art system to cap greenhouse gas emissions and create a market by distributing marketable emission permits to polluters.
Australia's "Direct Action" policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is paying polluters millions of dollars to avoid pollution they probably would not have emitted anyway, according to in-depth analysis.
Eight years ago, when Mr. Obama ran for president against Senator John McCain of Arizona, both men had essentially the same position on global warming: It is caused by humans, and Congress should enact legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions and force polluters to buy and trade permits that would slowly lower overall emissions of climate-warming gases.
The Senate measure, sponsored by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California, both Democrats, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under a cap-and-trade system that sets a nationwide limit on emissions but allows polluters to buy and sell permits to meet it.
