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Flood of permits will undermine carbon savings, says Sandbag UK-based campaign group Sandbag has warned that the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will commit the region to increasing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions unless changes are swiftly introduced. In a recent analysis of the flagship pollution reduction scheme, Sandbag found that the ETS will only deliver a "miniscule" reduction in emissions of 32 million tonnes over the 2008-2012 trading period. It has recommended a number of ways to fix the scheme, but fears that lobbying from powerful industrial organisations will prevent changes from being made. According to Sandbag, the ETS already suffers from an over-allocation of carbon permits and the situation has been made worse by reduced energy demand during the recession. Current ETS rules allow companies to carry over unused permits to the next trading period, which will run from 2013 to 2020, trapping the EU into a "continued high carbon economy". Among the fixes recommended by Sandbag are and increase in the EU carbon reduction target from 20 to 30 per cent by 2020, and setting caps for the next trading period based on actual emissions rather than permits allocated. Overall, some 1.4 billion tonnes of permits need to be removed permanently from the scheme, says Sandbag, which campaigns for more effective emission trading policies. "The recession has rendered the ETS caps thoroughly obsolete," said Sandbag campaigner Damien Morris. "Unless they are adjusted to reflect our new circumstances, the EU ETS risks becoming an albatross around the neck of European climate policy, a carbon trap rather than a carbon cap, obstructing the mitigation efforts of the EU and its Member States." Sandbag has also raised concerns about the "carbon fat cats" - large industrial organisations that have received significant over-allocations of carbon permits and which stand to profit from their sale. These firms, says Sandbag, are "lobbying hard to keep the ETS broken". Source: Utility Week © Faversham House Group Ltd 2010. News articles may be copied or forwarded
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