Rescuing EU Emissions Trading: Mission Impossible?

Jørgen Wettestad
Additional contact information
Jørgen Wettestad: Jørgen Wettestad is a research professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute.

Global Environmental Politics, 2014, vol. 14, issue 2, 64-81

Abstract: Is rescuing the EU's emissions trading system impossible? Despite the substantial reform in 2008, subsequent problems of allowance surplus and a low carbon price have spurred new efforts to reform the system for the 2013–2020 phase. But these efforts have met resistance both among member states and in the European parliament, and the EU is struggling in its efforts to improve the ETS. This article draws on four central EU and political science theory approaches to more systematically explore why. The financial crisis and slow international policy progress have narrowed the window of opportunity that was open in 2008. Factors that could open that window again include an economic upswing, a new European commission and parliament, and new global negotiations in 2015. But even without short-term reform, the linear reduction factor will gradually tighten the system and lead to a higher carbon price. © 2014 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Keywords: emissions trading; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00229 link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:2:p:64-81

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().