From 2020, the Administrative Measures for Carbon Emission Trading (Trial) will come into effect. These Measures are formulated in accordance with Article 1 of the Measures: to give full play to the role of the market mechanism in combating climate change and promoting green and low-carbon development, to promote the emission reduction of greenhouse gases, to regulate the trading of carbon emission rights and related activities throughout the country, and to comply with the requirements of the State on the control of greenhouse gas emissions.

For greenhouse gases to be controlled, Article 42 of the Measures clearly stipulates that there are seven greenhouse gases in total, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). The first six greenhouse gases were identified in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and nitrogen trifluoride was added to the list of regulated gases in 2008 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The current national standard "greenhouse gas emission accounting and reporting for industrial enterprises in general GB/T 32150-2015" stipulates that there are 7 kinds of greenhouse gases to be controlled, more than the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

Nitrogen trifluoride is a toxic, colorless, odorless, non-flammable oxidizing compressed gas. Nitrogen trifluoride was first used as an experimental rocket fuel in 1960. It was then used in chemical lasers for the US Star Wars missile defence system. Nitrogen trifluoride is mainly used in the production of flat-panel displays, integrated circuits and photovoltaic solar energy. Michael Prather, director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of California, has said that nitrogen trifluoride is a greenhouse gas that, once released into the atmosphere, stays in the atmosphere for about 550 years, with effects that "take hundreds of years to undo."

China is becoming the world's largest production base for LCD panels, and nitrous oxide and nitrogen trifluoride are the special gases used in the panel production process. Prather says only 2 percent of the nitrogen trifluoride used, transported and prepared is not released into the atmosphere.