“Carbon Markets: Linking the International Emission Trading Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS)”

Belen del Rio (1)

1 PDP - Centre de recherche Pau Droit Public

The trading of carbon emission permits is an instrument created recently to tackle the climate change problem. From 2005 onward, in particular, the volume and significance of different carbon emission trading schemes have increased spectacularly; despite the fact that new emission trading schemes are appearing, the value of the market had fallen by the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period in 2012. One fundamental reason for this was the uncertainty as to whether a new global agreement or protocol would be reached in 2015. The main goal of this chapter is to offer an overview of International Emission Trading under the Kyoto Protocol together with the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), as the schemes at the core of today’s carbon markets, exploring their basic structure, their main links, and their differences, including a carbon price analysis underlining their fundamental weaknesses and strengths.

Keywords: Climate change policy Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanisms Joint Implementation Mechanism International Emission Trading European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) Carbon markets Carbon trading Emission permits Emission rights Allowances Emission credits Diffuse sector Energy–climate policy CO2 emissions reduction Climate change international commitments

Domains: Law

Belen del Rio. “Carbon Markets: Linking the International Emission Trading Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS)”. Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Chen WY., Suzuki T., Lackner M. (eds), 2017, ISBN 978-3-319-14408-5. ⟨hal-02593279⟩