Tough love needed from EC to keep emissions trading on track

A pan-European federation of traders has said that the fact that many countries have missed the deadline for of their National Allocation Plans for the next period of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is undermining the existing market and is likely to have a deeper impact the longer the delays are allowed to continue.


The 25 member states were supposed to have published their NAPs by the end of June, but so far only Germany, the UK, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Poland have done so.

Writing to the European Commission, the European Federation of Emissions Traders (EFET) said that prompt and full publication of and formal notification of all the allocations plans is urgently needed.

The traders also said that there was a danger the scheme would fail to achieve real reductions in emissions and lose market confidence if the Commission did not ‘monitor the submitted allocation plans with utmost care’.

They said it would also be helpful to have a more co-ordinated approach to release of information about what states has proposed in their NAPs and which parts were likely to be accepted or rejected as well as co-ordinating proposed auctions of credits by member states.

The EFET, which represents over 80 trading companies operating in 20 countries, stressed it was still supportive of the ETS and its aims, and had overall been impressed by how the scheme had been managed during the first trading period.

But it said that if that success was to continue it is vital for the EC to be resolute in its enforcement of the scheme and ensure that all member states took their responsibilities – and the need for timely NAP submissions – seriously.

Sam Bond

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