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Peeters, Marjan --- "Enforcement of the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme" [2006] ELECD 433; in Peeters, Marjan; Deketelaere, Kurt (eds), "EU Climate Change Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: EU Climate Change Policy

Editor(s): Peeters, Marjan; Deketelaere, Kurt

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426057

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Enforcement of the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme

Author(s): Peeters, Marjan

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

9. Enforcement of the EU greenhouse
gas emissions trading scheme
Marjan Peeters1

1. iNtroDUCtioN
one of the remarkable developments in environmental law is the evolution of
emissions trading from a theoretical concept towards a main tool of actual cli-
mate change policies. the inclusion into the Kyoto Protocol of inter-state
emissions trading and project-based crediting of emissions reductions (joint
implementation (Ji) and clean development mechanisms (CDm)) is, indeed, an
important milestone of international environmental law. in addition, the Euro-
pean Union (EU) has established the largest domestic emissions trading scheme
worldwide, which actually started on 1 January 2005.2 it will be interesting to
see whether this application of emissions trading will have the expected positive
results in practice. outcome assessments are needed in order to learn about the
practical effects of the instrument in different respects, and to facilitate discus-
sions about improving the present scheme.
one core obligation of an emissions trading scheme (Ets) is that each covered
installation needs to surrender an amount of emissions rights at least equal to
the emissions during a certain well-defined period. in this respect, close attention
needs to be paid to the compliance behaviour of firms. it is obvious that compli-
ance with the rules of the emissions trading scheme is a precondition for letting
that market work. when some firms would act in breach of the rules, the envi-
ronmental effectiveness would become less, and the trust within the market
would become at risk. Enforcement issues of ...