The following is a geeky digest on what's going on with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, including what some of the main corporate lobbying efforts are
* Industries are currently lobbying on benchmarking rules
See eg. http://www.eurofer.org/
On past form, the "new entrants" terms are ones to watch - such as the chemicals industry
* Banks are worried about possible effects of Obama proposals on “proprietary trading”, esp. if spread to EU .
(Proprietary trading is where banks make bets with their own money, rather than investing other peoples' - explained here
* EU energy sector lobbies against exclusion of carbon “futures” auctioning
* Ongoing work on proposals to include shipping in ETS, which the EU proposes to do in the absence of a global agreement by the end of 2011
* Industrialists´ lobby wants global carbon market as part of EU-Long Term strategy:
“ERT's vision for a competitive Europe in 2025,” 2 Feb 2010: “Move towards a low-carbon economy: Encourage the continuing development of a global carbon market by taking steps towards linking the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) with other developed country systems (notably the USA), ensuring broad access to project mechanism reductions and market surveillance conducted at an EU level. ”
This is related to EU's debate on 2020 strategy - which includes many references (in submissions from EU industry lobbies) on carbon market linking and "leakage"
* EU ETS phase 3 rules that will be set this year: absolute allocations (that each country will receive), auction rules, new entrants rules (and reporting), benchmarking
By March 2010: Commission regulation on Auctioning due
By 30 June 2010: Publication of absolute ETS allowances for 2013
By December 2010: Commission to publish estimated amount of allowances to be auctioned
* The rules for allocation of auction revenues from 300 million permits to CCS (and unspecified loose change to "innovative renewables") are now decided and will be handled by the European Investment Bank:
