Brussels, 19/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - With total verified emissions from industrial installations in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) standing at 1.873 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2009, emissions fell by 11.6% compared with the previous year. These figures, published by the European Commission on Tuesday 18 March, come from information provided by member states' registries, gathered at European level by the Community Independent Transaction Log (CITL).
While this is good news for the climate, there is no reason to hang the flags out just yet, the Commission says. The fall in emissions may be laid principally at the door of the slowdown in economic activity and the low level of gas prices throughout 2009, which made it much more attractive to produce power from gas rather than from coal, the Commission says. The carbon price in phase 2 (2008-2012) of the EU ETS has surely also resulted in companies changing behaviour.
“Due to the crisis, the significant drop in emissions does not come as a surprise,” Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in a press release. She added, “The EU has a functioning trading system driving emission reductions even during a recession. We should not hide that the recession has significantly weakened the price signal. The carbon market can and should be a stronger driver for low-carbon investments. And we must also realise that because of the crisis it suddenly became easier to reduce emissions and that is good. Unfortunately that also means that European business did not invest nearly as much as planned in innovation, which could harm our future ability to compete on promising markets”.
The information published by the Commission shows, too, that only 3% of installations in the EU ETS failed to submit verified emissions for the year 2009 before 1 May 2010 deadline. CERs (Certified Emission Reductions), emissions credits in return for clean investment in developing countries, accounted for 4.1% of all credits generated through the Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms. 52% of CERs originated in China, 21% in India, 14% in South Korea and 9% in Brazil. The Commission says that these credits represented only some 12% of the approximately 1.4 billion credits that are allowed over the 2008-2012 trading period. (A.N./transl.rt)