UK Says Emission Trade to Meet 3-11pct Kyoto Target
Reuters
March 24, 2000
LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - A planned UK greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme could account for up to 11 percent of Britain's carbon reduction targets by 2010, a government official said.
But in the worst case it could count for as little as three percent of the 17.6 million metric tonnes of carbon reduction target Britain has set itself.
"We are looking at between 500,000 and two million tonnes of carbon," Henry Derwent, Director of Risk and Atmosphere and the UK Department of Environment and Transport told an emissions trading conference in London this week.
The figures are initial projections of what a domestic trading mechanism could supply and are not set in stone, Derwent said.
The scheme, a form of "green" exchange will allow domestic energy-intensive companies which cannot meet their emissions reduction targets under a government-agreed general cap to buy the right to pollute more from firms which have met their targets.
Under the auspices of an Emissions Trading Authority, firms would receive tradeable permits that matched an annual emissions limit agreed with the government expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
These could then be traded or banked for use in future years.
The government and the Confederation of British Industry hope that a an emissions trading scheme could go live next April when the Climate Change Levy (CCL) is introduced.
An exchange would act alongside the CCL -- a tax on the business use of energy.
The trading scheme is just one of the "flexible mechanisms" agreed under the United Nations Kyoto protocol designed to help countries meet greenhouse gas emissions limits.
A draft of the British government's climate change programme envisages business slashing carbon emissions by between 3.5-5.5 million metric tonnes, and transport by 7-7.3 million
tonnes.
The domestic sector will account for 4.0-5.3 million while agriculture and the public sector burden will be much smaller at around 500,000
tonnes.
At a United Nations conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 the UK agreed to reduce its emissions of harmful climate changing greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global warming by 12.5 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
In addition it has committed to slashing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20 percent over the same time frame.
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