WWF DISSES EU CAP-AND-TRADE

Green group slams EU carbon-trading system
June 12, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo News)

WHO
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Dr. Keith Allot, head. WWF-UK Climate Change Programme;.European Union (EU)
WWF integrity is unquestionable

WHAT
The EU’s Phase Two Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is “short-sighted” and will fail to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

WHEN
- "Emission Impossible": WWF report released June 13.
- EU Phase Two ETS runs 2008 thru 2012. (Phase One was 2005 thru 2008.)

WHERE
"Emission Impossible" report on 9 EU states: Britain, Germany, Poland, Ireland, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy.

WHY
- The WWF criticism: EU businesses can "buy massive amounts of credits from projects outside the EU…" which will allow the businesses to spew without interruption in their home countries.
- Trading plan: Companies issued caps on emissions and credits for those emissions. Excess credits can be sold; excess emissions can be can be balanced by purchasing more credits from other EU businesses or from developing nation businesses.
Phase One success was equivocal, Critics complain credits were handed out too liberally.
- WWF report contends 88-100% of EU emissions in Phase One could have been offset by outside EU credit purchases, effectively eliminating European GHG emission reductions.
few dispute Phase One's failures (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- WWF: "…this reliance on cheap imported credits means that European industry may not have to reduce its own emissions at all…"
- Allot: “The European Commission’s decision to allow companies to buy huge volumes of project credits means that heavy industry -- including the power sector -- could potentially buy its way out of cutting its own emissions…There is a real danger that this will lock the EU in to high carbon investments and soaring emissions for many years to come -- wrecking the EUs emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2030 and making a mockery of Europes standing as a world leader in tackling climate change. If the ETS is to fulfil its potential, we must ensure it leads to real carbon emission reductions within Europe."