ESTONIA WANTS MORE CARBON CREDIT

Expect this kind of dueling to open up a whole new set of opportunities for legal “hired guns” as mandatory cap-and-trade systems become more common.

Estonia to appeal EU ruling cutting carbon emissions
July 12, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo news)

WHO
Government of Estonia (President Toomas Hendrik, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, EU Affairs Department Head Gert Anso)
Estonia (click to enlarge)

WHAT
- Estonia will take legal action against the European Commission’s refusal to grant the country’s request to have its allocation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions raised from 12.7 million tons to 24 million tons.

WHEN
Legal action initiated July 12. Emission caps pertain to the 2008 –2012 Phase 3 of Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism period.

WHERE
Announcement of legal action in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

WHY
- As a member of the European Union, Estonia is required to adhere to the Commission’s decisions on emissions limits. Unique among nations, Estonia generates the bulk of its electricity from shale oil. It claims the Commission’s equating of brown coal and shale oil emissions is inaccurate. The limitation, Estonia contends, prevents it from achieving its economic development potential.
- Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also challenged their quotas.
- Main industries affected by restrictions: metallurgy, oil refining and power generation. Power generation is ½ of EU GHG emissions.
Estonia is one of the few places in the world getting oil from shale. It is an environmentally destructive substance to produce. The U.S. has large deposits not considered economically feasible to develop. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
Anso: "The model the Commission is using (to allocate quotas) works automatically in many ways. For example, it thinks it would be economically useful for Estonia to produce more energy from gas, but it's not as simple as that…The energy mix used in each country is in member states' competence. The EU couldn't tell Austria to produce more power from nuclear sources… the aim would be to get the court to repeal the EC's decision, so it would have to come up with a new suggestion."