Saturday, May 24, 2008

Emissions trading continues to dissapoint

From the European Commission Spokesman's briefing yesterday:

"Overall emissions of CO2 from businesses in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) increased by 0.68% in 2007 when adjusted for changes in the number of
installations covered, according to the information provided by Member State registries. While well below the 2.8% growth in the EU's Gross Domestic Product recorded last year, the slight increase in emissions underlines the need for the tighter emission caps that have been set for the 2008-2012 trading period."


Ignore the spin that this is well below GDP growth. It is no achievement of the ETS that emissions intensity (emissions/GDP) is falling - that has been happening across the developed world for some time.

In fact, the real picture is even worse than this suggests as the EU is, in part due to schemes like the ETS, exporting huge amounts of manufacturing activity, and therefore emissions, to the developing world. If green taxes and regulations result in a very efficient plant in Sunderland being replaced by a very dirty plant in China that is no green achievement at all.

1 comment:

William Gruff said...

'Dissapoint'?