Certainties and uncertainties - proposed modifications to the Emissions Trading Directive

摘要

Before the Emissions Trading Directive was ratified in 2003, industry expressed a number of concerns about its potential impact. The various position papers all expressed a fear that European industry would be put at a financial and operational disadvantage as a result of the trading scheme. Industry was concerned that the trading scheme should not provide an incentive to relocate plants outside the EU and/or increase imports into the EU. In this respect, critical parts of the initial proposal were those related to allocation, burden sharing and costs of compliance. This continues to be industry's major concern. Although its preferred approach to certain issues has not changed - placing the major burden of GHC reduction on energy-intensive industries and the need to include all CHC and all Kyoto mechanisms - its former preference for national allocation has changed, and although free allocation continues to be favoured over auctioning, some sectors are now well advanced in developing practical approaches based on benchmarking.