A proposed national Chinese carbon trading scheme is likely to see carbon prices trade at a level that helps to cut emissions slightly but is not high enough to yield dramatic reductions, according to a survey of the potential price for carbon in the world’s largest polluter.

A national scheme is still far off but experimental trading has begun on China’s only existing carbon market – a pilot project in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong. Several other pilots are due to open in the next two years as China tests the water for a market-based system to discourage polluting emissions.

A survey of financiers, regulators, academics and industry players showed that half expect a national scheme that unifies experience from the various pilots to be launched by 2018, said survey author Frank Jotzo of the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University.