clair031

Summary :   In March 2011 European Commission issued its Energy Roadmap 2050, directed to reducing its overall emissions of greenhouse gases by 80-95% below the emissions level of 1990 by 2050.   The Roadmap implements a cap-and-trade market mechanism with successively lower greenhouse gas emission caps to provide market incentives to move away from use of fossil fuels that burn to form carbon dioxide, the important greenhouse gas (see the preceding post).   This post summarizes the greenhouse gas abatement policies and technologies presented in the Roadmap.   The plan relies, among others, on implementing drastic energy efficiency programs, major migration away from use of fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources, and to the extent that fossil fuels remain in use, carbon capture and storage technology to remove CO 2 before it enters the atmosphere. The Roadmap is the first international agreement put in place that follows the expiration of the Kyoto Protoc...

Summary.   Just prior to entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005 the European Union adopted a cap-and-trade market mechanism, the Emissions Trading System, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.   The System has three phases of operation between 2005 and 2020, the current ending date of the System as devised.   The System covers 11,000 or more individual facilities.   Phase 1, lasting 3 years, was intended as a trial period.   It suffered from problems in implementation which impeded its effectiveness during this interval.   Phase 2 lasts 5 years and is drawing to an end this year.   In Phase 2 the allocation of emission allowances and operation of the allowance market were optimized, and the coverage of emitting sources is expanded.   Phase 3 is to last to 2020.   Its allowances are to decrease each year, so that greenhouse gas emissions necessarily will fall, to a level about 20% lower than 2005. The Emiss...