Greenhouse gas emissions allowance and trade: the European Union Emission Trading Scheme
Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Emission Trading is an ingenious policy conceived by environmental economics to control pollution by providing economic incentives in order to achieve a reduction in emissions. Currently, as the world’s biggest emission trading scheme, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the European Union’s primary environmental policy to help comply with its international commitments in GHG reductions. Until now, results have been encouraging, despite some problems. However, as we shall see, this policy isn’t applicable to all economic sectors, and needs to be complemented by others, not only to enable the EU to meet its International commitments agreed at the Kyoto Protocol, but also to become a low carbon-intensive economy. Thus, I start by reviewing the economic foundations that lie underneath this concept, before looking into its most relevant political implementation: the EU ETS. I then proceed to point out the main problems that have showed up during the trial phase, before describing the new proposals of the Commission, which aim at improving and extending the scheme. Additionally, I’ll summarize the main results of the cost assessment presented in the relevant literature, before looking into the most important limitations of the scheme. To finish, I’ll sum-up my main conclusions.
Author: Madureira, Elísio
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204018114