Articles related to "EU Emissions Trading Scheme"

President Barack Obama signed a bill yesterday (27 November) shielding US airlines from paying for each tonne of carbon their planes emit flying into and out of Europe, despite a recent move by Europe to suspend its proposed measure for one year.

Carbon trading schemes are fast sprouting across the planet as a market-based way of addressing rising greenhouse gas emissions. But advocates should be prepared for powerful business backlashes, Chang-beom Kim, the South Korean ambassador to the EU, warned a Brussels round table of business leaders and envoys on 19 November.

The European Commission has announced a twin-track approach to fixing Europe’s depressed carbon market with a short-term ‘backloading’ of carbon allowances, to be followed by proposals for long-term structural change before the end of the year.

The European Commission has yet to set a date for publishing plans to bolster the EU Emissions Trading System, but still aims to release them before the summer recess begins in August, a spokesman said yesterday (4 July).

In an exclusive interview with EurActiv, a top executive with Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil and gas company, has set out a verdant stall for EU carbon market intervention, binding emissions reductions targets in 2030, and robust environmental criteria for biofuels.

A review of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) has been brought forward a year, offering “a golden opportunity” for a re-examination of the current rules to prop up the depressed carbon market, said Connie Hedegaard, the EU's Climate Action commissioner.

European steelmakers said they started legal action on Thursday (21 July) to overturn the way the sector has been included in the European Union's carbon market.

Carbon market queasiness resurfaced yesterday (19 May) when a vote on plans to disguise the serial numbers of EU carbon allowances (EUAs) was postponed to give member states more time for debate.

Greater centralisation of the European carbon market is the only lasting answer to the recent carbon permit theft, according to Christian de Perthuis, an economics professor at Paris-Dauphine University. He was speaking to EurActiv France.

Up to two million European Union carbon allowances (EUAs) worth as much as €14 a tonne may have been stolen from registries across the European Union in the biggest ever fraud aimed at the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The European Commission opened competition for the world's biggest investment programme in green technologies yesterday (9 November), in a bid to gain a competitive advantage over the US and China on renewables and carbon capture and storage.

The EU's emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) is set to deliver no more than 0.3% carbon savings on total emissions in the current five year trading period, which ends in 2012, according to a new report by climate group Sandbag. 

The EU's climate chief yesterday (25 August) said the European Commission was preparing measures to limit the use of carbon credits from industrial gas projects in its cap-and-trade system after 2012.

European Union governments on Wednesday unanimously agreed detailed rules for auctioning carbon permits in the third phase of the bloc's emissions trading scheme from 2013, the European Commission said yesterday (14 July).

Bulgaria will be suspended from carbon emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol as a result of poor transparency and untrustworthiness, the country's environment minister said on 13 May. The decision represents a heavy blow for the government in Sofia, which expected to receive €250m in revenue from the scheme this year, according to Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner publication in Bulgaria.

German prosecutors said on Wednesday (28 April) they had searched more than 230 sites in a probe based on suspicions of tax evasion in the trading of European Union carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rights certificates.

The European Commission has backed down on plans to establish a centralised platform for auctioning CO2 emission allowances from 2013, allowing Germany, the UK and other large emitters to organise auctions at national level, according to a draft proposal seen by EurActiv.

EU finance ministers approved on Tuesday (16 March) a directive to clamp down on VAT fraud in carbon markets by allowing member states to shift the levy to the end user.

The ten companies holding the largest number of surplus emission allowances under the EU's cap-and-trade system stand to make a profit of 3.2 billion euros in the 2008-2012 trading period, according to a new analysis of EU data.

The EU's General Court yesterday (2 March) ruled against steel company Arcelor's attempt to challenge the rules governing the EU's emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) and associated claim for damages.

Stricter caps on greenhouse gas emissions and a price 'floor' are needed to deliver green investment, an influential parliamentary committee in the UK said yesterday (8 February), calling on the government to intervene.

The European Commission is leaning towards spot auctioning for emission allowances for the next trading period due to start in 2013, prompting the electricity industry to warn that prices will go up if allowances are not made available early enough.

The EU should look into pouring a high proportion of carbon revenues into energy efficiency, but not before an institutional framework to reallocate the money efficiently is in place, Richard Cowart, director of European programmes for the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), told EurActiv in an interview.

The European Commission is considering imposing an EU-wide tax on CO2 emissions on sectors such as transport and agriculture, which are currently not covered by the bloc's cap-and-trade scheme for carbon dioxide, EurActiv has learnt.

Industries participating in the EU's emissions trading scheme will likely end up with surplus allowances worth almost 400 million tonnes of CO2 in the period 2008-2012, undermining the objectives of the scheme, a climate campaign group said this week.

The French government has set the ball rolling to introduce a carbon tax in 2011, anticipating support for Sweden's plans to make implementing such a scheme at EU level the priority of its upcoming six-month turn at the bloc's helm.

An investment fund specialising in post-2012 carbon credits is building confidence in carbon markets and offsetting the risk of new low-carbon projects.

The European carbon market, like its peers across energy and commodities, appears to be pinning its hopes on a big-picture economic recovery and ignoring a weak demand outlook closer to home.

The ongoing economic recession is set to reduce EU carbon dioxide emissions more dramatically than expected in 2009, but carbon prices are expected to continue to rise, according to a Deutsche Bank report published yesterday (5 May).

Boosted by carbon trading schemes, natural gas will be the "preferred energy option" in decades to come, experts believe.

With international climate negotiations tending to focus mainly on tackling industrial emissions blamed for global warming, NGOs have warned that the issue of deforestation, which is just as serious, could be overlooked.

Carbon markets would collapse if forest protection credits were to be included in international emissions trading, Greenpeace warned world leaders gathering for the first official round of UN climate talks in Bonn.

With energy representing up to 50% of operational costs, oil refineries are increasingly looking for opportunities to invest in energy efficiency, with combined heat and power production representing an important part of the solution.

As the price of EU emission allowances (EUAs) remains under €10, Ed Miliband, the UK's energy and climate change secretary, last week joined those demanding EU measures to prop up the market. Many experts, however, have warned against such intervention.

Introducing binding emission limits for all power stations is key to shifting investment decisions in the power sector to "avoid dangerous lock-in to high-carbon power infrastructure," argues a new report commissioned by environmental groups WWF, Bellona Europa, ClientEarth, E3G and the Green Alliance.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels yesterday (11 December) closed in on an agreement that would give Europe's big polluters more CO2 emission permits free of charge, as the bloc's major economies slip further into economic recession.

The chemical sector was embroiled in a bitter row yesterday (4 December) over its exposure to the EU's ambitious climate goals, as new research contradicted its claim that producers were at risk of delocalising factories, jobs and emissions to other parts of the world.

The French EU Presidency is "putting everything on the table" in a "desperate" bid to agree on the climate and energy package before the end of the year, sources close to the negotiations told EurActiv.

Early identification of industries exposed to foreign competition and temporary exemptions from full CO2 permit auctioning for coal-dependent economies are part of a French EU Presidency compromise proposal designed to overcome opposition to EU climate plans from some of the bloc's heavy industries and newer member states.

Poland, backed by a number of Eastern European member states, has proposed setting upper and lower limits for CO2 permits within the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).  

There has so far been no sign that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has prompted industry to relocate outside of Europe, says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a report which seeks to "demystify" the "noises" coming from sectors such as cement and steel.

The EU 15 should comfortably reach their collective Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8% by 2012 compared to 1990 levels, but only if good performers cover for laggard states, new projections show.

MEPs will tomorrow (7 October) vote on key legislation designed to slash the EU's CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020. But the vote comes amidst a worsening economic crisis, with several member states indicating that they want to put the brakes on any rapid adoption of the measures. 

The French EU Presidency is stepping up calls for an early identification of sectors that could qualify for exemptions to the EU's carbon market. 

The European Commission is drawing up a methodology to determine which industries could obtain free emission rights when the EU's carbon market is re-launched in 2013. Aluminium, steel, iron and cement producers are likely to benefit from exemptions.

Concerns are growing that import restrictions being mooted by the EU and other developed states as a means to protect their domestic energy intensive industries against 'dirty' imports from developing states like India and China could lead to a global trade war.  

Europe's electronics and electrical engineering industries say they can make big contributions to cutting EU CO2 emissions, especially through energy efficiency improvements. But investment incentives and greater certainty on exemptions to emissions rules are needed, they say. 

Member states' positions on proposals designed to cut EU CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 continue to diverge significantly as the EU enters into what could be one of the busiest and potentially divisive negotiation periods in its history. 

New evidence has emerged that up to two thirds of projects financed under the auspices of the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should not be credited for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

RWE, Enel and E.ON were the three biggest emitters of CO2 in 2005-2007, mainly due to heavy reliance on coal and lignite for power generation, according to Carbon Market Data, an independent market research firm.

The EU and Japan announced they would seek greater convergence in their approaches to an international framework to address climate change following their annual summit on 23 April. The two sides also addressed rising commodity prices, development and economic uncertainty.

Over the next four years, power companies in five EU countries could reap profits in excess of €70 billion because of the continued allocation of free CO2 emissions permits, says a new report commissioned by WWF.

EU environment ministers have seconded the generally positive reaction to the Commission's climate and energy package given last week by energy ministers. Flexibility is needed for reducing CO2 emissions, however, to prevent key EU industries from moving operations elsewhere, they said.

Europe's metal and paper industries may be given free emission allowances during the post-2013 phase of the EU carbon market, the Commission indicated in two communications announced this week. Brussels is hoping to prevent energy-intensive sectors from fleeing the EU as the bloc's carbon market becomes tighter.

Analysts foresee a boom in carbon emissions trading by 2020 as the EU prepares to include new sectors in its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) and the United States' accession to a similar system appears increasingly inevitable.

Plans for a new European greenhouse gas reduction regime would see large swathes of industry having to pay for the right to pollute, raising electricity prices, for example, by as much as 15%. Safeguard measures to prevent factories and jobs being driven out of Europe have been delayed until the outcome of negotiations for a global climate pact.

The Commission's services are engaged in intense negotiations to finalise controversial energy and climate proposals, which are under heavy attack from industry groups and some member states, who warn the plans could destroy Europe's competitiveness. Green groups have come to the defence of the proposals.

The industry lobby group BusinessEurope has warned that the EU must focus more on energy efficiency, rather than renewable energies and emissions trading, if it wants to prevent energy-intensive industries such as chemicals and steel-making from taking their operations elsewhere.

Industrial greenhouse gases prevented from entering the atmosphere through the use of so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are to be credited as not emitted under the EU emissions trading scheme, according to Commission plans to be put forward next year.

A small number of European states have joined up with US and Canadian regional cap-and-trade initiatives to share information about emissions trading systems. The new group hopes to act as a driver for the creation of a wider, international carbon market in advance of key UN climate negotiations in Bali. 

The US House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce is arguing for a reduction of US greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% by 2050, and has put forward a White Paper outlining a future domestic emissions trading scheme to reach the ambitious target.

Dealing with climate change will require significant changes in global investment patterns, including investment flows to the developing world of up to 1.7% of global GDP by 2030, according to a United Nations report that points to the potential of emissions trading as a promising source of funding. 

The EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is under increasing pressure as eight of the bloc's 27 member states are threatening the Commission with legal action, following its decision to slash the amount of carbon allowances allocated to companies.

On 13 July 2007, the European Commission adopted a series of decisions on revised carbon permit allocation plans of five EU member states for the second phase of the EU emissions-trading scheme. The decisions are part of an ongoing and contentious process to establish a viable EU carbon market.

On 26 June, panellists from a range of sectors debated the role of regulation, fiscal incentives, consumers and other issues related to the transformation of the EU's energy market in light of climate-change and energy-security concerns.

Speaking at a 21 June conference in Brussels, BP's Chief Economist Peter Davies presented the petroleum giant's annual Statistical Review of world energy markets for 2006. In addition to discussing major energy trends, Davies gave assurances that fears over an imminent oil shortage are misguided.

Allowing energy-intensive industries in the EU to purchase a large number of emissions allowances on the international market will undermine the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), argues a new report by WWF. CO2 emissions decreased slightly between 2004 and 2005, according to a separate study released on 14 June by the European Environment Agency.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has proposed that, in future, all greenhouse-gas emission permits under the EU emissions-trading scheme (EU ETS) must be auctioned off rather than allocated. Currently, the system allows for only 10% of permits to be auctioned.

WWF has released its 2007 'Dirty Thirty' report, which ranks Europe's 30 worst power stations in terms of climate-polluting emissions. Combined, they account for 10% of all CO2 emissions in the EU. Germany and the UK each have ten plants on the list, all of which are coal-fired. 

A legal row is brewing as Budapest considers taking the Commission to court over its decision to slash the amount of carbon allowances that the country can allocate to companies under the European emissions-trading scheme.

The European Commission has told Poland and the Czech Republic to significantly lower the CO2 limits imposed on their industry for 2008-2012, sparking a row with Warsaw and Prague.

Environment Secretary David Miliband is expected to call on 5 March 2007 for the inclusion of road and rail transport in the next phase of the EU's emissions trading scheme for CO2 as the UK declares its intention to create a "post-oil economy".

The Slovak government argues that the EU has no competence to dictate how national CO2 quotas are calculated and that the Commission decision does not reflect the country's high economic growth.

Nearly half of all measures needed in industrialised countries to fight climate change can pay for themselves. This is the conclusion of a new Global Climate Abatement Plan presented by Swedish energy company Vattenfall.

Trade Commissioner Mandelson has attacked a plan supported by France and Industry Commissioner Verheugen to impose taxes on imported goods from countries that have not ratified the Kyoto protocol.

The European Commission has sent Germany and nine other EU states back to the drawing board over their excessive CO2 pollution credits.

Climate change and energy issues have gone to the top of the EU's political agenda, as demonstrated by several Brussels conferences last week.

French and Polish CO2 allocations plans look set to be ditched as the Commission prepares for the next phase of the EU trading scheme to reduce emissions of global-warming gases (2008-2012).

A paper drafted for the Commission suggests taxing goods imported from countries that do not impose a CO2 cap on their industry as a way to compensate for the costs of climate- change measures.

Speakers from all major political groups in the European Parliament attacked the Commission for being soft on Member States after a majority of EU countries missed a 30 June deadline to submit CO2 emissions trading plans.

One month after the deadline, the Commission is preparing legal action against 18 member states who have failed to submit their CO2 quota plan in time for the next phase of the EU emissions trading scheme starting in 2008.

Environmental experts and stakeholders analysed the potential for linking the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) with emerging carbon markets worldwide.

The International Energy Outlook 2006 foresees a rise of global energy consumption by 71% between 2003 and 2030, resulting in an increase of world-wide carbon dioxide emissions by 75% over the same period.

Most analysts blame the recent plunge in carbon prices on the overly generous CO2 allowances that EU member states granted to industry in the first phase of the scheme. Pressure is building up for tougher allocations under the second phase.

Reports that six EU countries had emitted far less CO2 than anticipated sent carbon prices plummeting last week. Attention now turns to the EU's next round of emission allocation plans due on 30 June.

The UK government is considering appealing a Commission decision to reject its request for additional CO2 emission allowances to British industry for the first trading period of the EU emissions trading scheme (2005-2007).

Brussels wants to slash CO2 emissions by a further 6% as the EU prepares for a decisive phase in its flagship emissions trading scheme to meet its target under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Both the EU and the US are sticking to different approaches on combating climate change. But EU politicians now increasingly admit the apparently antagonistic strategies are in fact complementary.

Encouraging innovation and investment in clean technologies will form the major part of the second European Climate Change Programme (ECCP II) to be launched today (24 October).

CO2 emissions from all international flights are to be capped and open to trading on the EU 'carbon market' under a new Commission proposal. But the system will prove difficult to apply in the case of non-EU airlines.

No additional sectors or gases will be added to the EU CO2 trading scheme before 2013, the Commission has said as it kick-started the review of the scheme on 14 June with a survey of traders, businesses, member states and NGOs.

Italy accepted to significantly cut back the planned CO2 emitted by its industry for the 2005-2007 period in order to receive the Commission's approval to enter the EU emissions trading scheme.

London has announced that it will go ahead with plans approved by Brussels last year to curb CO2 emissions from energy-intensive industries. At the same time the UK is taking legal action to force the Commission into agreeing to higher emission limits.

By setting greenhouse gas reduction targets of 15-30% by 2020 and 60-80% by 2050, environment ministers went much further than the Commission when discussing the EU's climate change policy post-2012.

Europe and the United States have different policy options when it comes to fighting global warming. Their clashing views on the economic impact of climate change policies do not bode well for the chances of any future global framework post-Kyoto.

Five months ahead of the start of the UK Presidency, Prime Minister Tony Blair is being criticised for undermining the EU emissions trading scheme by allocating too many carbon dioxide pollution permits to industry.

Only a minority of member states are planning to use the Kyoto flexible mechanisms in a substantial way, says the European Environment Agency director Jacqueline McGlade in an interview with EurActiv.

Lack of competition in the EU power market is likely to serve as an excuse for a rise in electricity prices, warns an industry coalition. Emissions from the EU electricity sector have increased by 5% in 2003.

The Commission has given a qualified approval to the French national CO2 allocation plan. Eight new plans in total have been approved amid criticisms that many countries, including France, are over-allocating.

The Commission has approved eight national allocation plans for CO2 emissions trading and warned two Member States for being too late with theirs. A further batch of assessments is expected in September.

The Parliament has adopted the compromise reached with the Council on the proposal to link the Kyoto flexible mechanisms to its new greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme.

A proposal to set aside carbon credits in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) to prop up the price of CO2 is bad for the credibility of the ETS and bad for European competitiveness – especially the chemicals industry, writes William Garcia from CEFIC.

"A cap & trade system remains the most suitable tool to address emissions reductions worldwide in comparison with carbon taxation," writes Maïté Jaureguy-Naudin, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), in a March paper.

The EU ETS has been a relative success considering the challenges it has faced and should serve as an example in the current US climate policy debate, argue Denny Ellerman and Paul Joskow in a May 2008 report for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

The emissions trading scheme currently in place in the EU has "fundamental flaws", writes Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform (CER).

The climate-change debate has shifted, claim Eileen Claussen and Judith Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in a July 2007 article for the Miami Herald.

The regulatory market economy dimension of climate change will affect European industry sectors much earlier than the environmental-climatic dimension, writes Eric Heymann in a 5 July research paper for Deutsche Bank.

Concerns about the loss of industrial competitiveness remain one of the major barriers to setting more robust carbon dioxide mitigation obligations on industrial sectors in the EU, observes a March 2007 report from the Climate Strategies group.

This book, published by Sweden’s Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, argues that carbon-trading schemes are “both ineffective and unjust” and will only prolong the world's dependence on fossil fuels.

Experts from the 'European Climate Platform' (ECP – a joint initiative by CLIPORE and CEPS) identify the key strategic and operational issues for the review of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) later this year.

This task force report from the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) looks into issues related to the second phase of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS:2008-2012) as member states prepare to hand in their National Action Plans for 30 June.

Eric Heymann from Deutsche Bank Research writes that a tax-free fuel for air traffic is a privilege which cannot be accepted from an environmental point of view. But he argues that, for Germany, going it alone at national level would be a mistake with traffic volume moving to neighbouring countries. Other possibilities would be the integration of air traffic in the EU emissions trading scheme. At current prices, he estimates the price surcharge to make a flight climate neutral to be roughly 5-20 euros per ticket.