Jørgen Wettestad

EU Emissions Trading : Initiation, Decision-making and Implementation

Contents: Preface Introduction Analytical framework Development of EU ETS Initiating EU emissions trading Deciding on EU emissions trading Implementing EU emissions trading Conclusions References Annex Index.

The Making of the 2003 EU Emissions Trading Directive: An Ultra-Quick Process due to Entrepreneurial Proficiency?

The EU emissions trading scheme has been characterized as one of the most farreaching and radical environmental policies for many years, and the new grand policy experiment. Given the EUs earlier resistance to this market-based instrument with no international track record and with US origins, the EU decision-making process, which took less than two years, can be characterized as a puzzlingly ultra-quick political pregnancy. In order to understand this, it is necessary to take three explanatory perspectivesand the interaction between theminto account. First, the emissions trading issue was more mature within the EU system than immediately apparent, given that emissions projections were worrying and no effective common climate policies had been adopted. Second, the Commission acted as a strong and clever policy entrepreneur, dealing with other basically positive EU bodies. Third, when the US pulled out of the Kyoto process in March 2001, it provided a window of opportunity for the EU to take the reins of global policy leadership.

Soft Law, Hard Law, and Effective Implementation of International Environmental Norms

The article compares the interplay between soft law institutions and those based on hard law in international efforts to protect the North Sea, reduce transboundary air pollution, and discipline fisheries subsidies. Our cases confirm that ambitious norms are more easily achieved in soft law institutions than in legally binding ones, but not primarily because they bypass domestic ratification or fail to raise concerns for compliance costs. More important is the greater flexibility offered by soft law instruments with respect to participation and sectoral emphasis. Second, ambitious soft law regimes put political pressure on laggards in negotiations over binding rules, but this effect is contingent on factors such as political saliency and reasonably consensual risk and option assessment. Third, hard-law instruments are subject to more thorough negotiation and preparation which, unless substantive targets have been watered down, makes behavioral change and problem solving more likely. Finally, although most of the evidence presented here confirms the implementation edge conventionally ascribed to hard law institutions, the structures for intrusive verification and review that provide part of the explanation can also be created within soft law institutions.

The Origin, Evolution and Consequences of the EU Emissions Trading System

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of EU climate policy, a grand policy experiment, as the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. In this article, we seek to provide a broad overview of the initiation, decision-making and implementation of the EU ETS so far. We explore why the EU changed from a laggard to a leader in emissions trading, how it managed to establish the system rapidly, and the consequences to date, leading up to the 2008 proposal for a revised ET Directive for the post-2012 period. We apply three explanatory approaches, focusing on the roles of the EU member states, the EU institutions and the international climate regime, and conclude that all three approaches are needed to understand what happened, how and why. This also reveals that what happened in the early days of developing the system had significant consequences for the problems experienced in practice and the prospects ahead.

Fixing the EU Emissions Trading System? Understanding the Post-2012 Changes

This article explains why the significant changes in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) for the 20132020 phase were adopted in 2008. The combination of a more stringent EU-wide cap, allocation of emission allowances for payment, and limits on imports of credits from third countries have strengthened the system for the post-2012 period. This will promote reduction in greenhouse gases compared to the old system. The main reasons for these changes are, first, changes in the positions of the member states due to unsatisfactory experience with performance of the EU ETS so far. Second, a package approach where the EU ETS reform was integrated into wider energy and climate policy facilitated agreement on the changes. Third, changes in the position of nonstate actors and a desire to affect the international climate negotiations contributed to the reform.

EU Climate and Energy Policy: A Hesitant Supranational Turn?

This article examines the recent changes of three central EU climate and energy policies: the revised Emissions Trading Directive (ETS); the Renewables Directive (RES); and internal energy market (IEM) policy. An increasing transference of competence to EU level institutions, and hence “vertical integration,” has taken place, most clearly in the case of the ETS. The main reasons for the differing increase in vertical integration are, first, that more member states were dissatisfied with the pre-existing system in the case of the ETS than in the two other cases. Second, the European Commission and Parliament were comparatively more united in pushing for changes in the case of the ETS. And, third, although RES and IEM policies were influenced by regional energy security concerns, they were less structurally linked to and influenced by the global climate regime than the ETS.

Acid lessons? LRTAP implementation and effectiveness☆

Abstract The article reviews current literature on LRTAP implementation and effectiveness, and suggests ten main ‘acid answers’ and lessons based on the literature so far: first, LRTAP is a high-compliance regime; second, important causal factors for compliance levels are found outside the sphere of ‘environmental polities’; third, ‘national interests’ based on cost/ benefit calculations can roughly predict levels of compliance; fourth, especially in the NO x context, domestic political factors must also be included in order to understand compliance levels; fifth, although LRTAP has had important arena functions, much of the reductions would have taken place anyway; sixth, the transboundary acidification problems have been reduced, but the transboundary ‘solution’ and getting below ‘critical loads’ in both the rural and urban environment is a venture extending well into the next century; seventh, LRTAPs scientific-political complex has been very valuable; eighth, provision of information has been the important LRTAP mechanism; ninth, research has so far been mainly complementary; tenth, improving knowledge of the regime-domestic interplay, including institutional access and participation issues as well as the EC-LRTAP interplay, is amongst the main challenges for further research.

Rescuing EU Emissions Trading: Mission Impossible?

Is rescuing the EUs 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.

The complicated development of EU climate policy

This chapter sums up efforts in the 1990s to develop effective EU climate policy and climate policy instruments, and in this context discusses some main lessons and implications both for future EU climate policy and for the global context. The failure of EU common climate policy gives support to the general argument for flexible and differentiated measures. Given the relatively advanced state of the EU system, the EU could take on interesting pilot testing roles in the development of international emissions trading schemes. However, this would make it even more important to get the EU monitoring mechanism to function effectively.

International resource cooperation and the greenhouse problem

Abstract This article summarizes some Important lessons from experience of international environmental cooperation. The main focus in the first part Is on institutional and procedural factors: participation; scope of the agenda; political leadership; incorporation of scientific knowledge; and design of the agreement. The second part focuses on global climate negotiations: to what extent have they been conducted according to lessons learned? Bearing in mind that the greenhouse context is comparatively very complex, our impression is that the ‘match’ is quite good, although uneven. But, the prospects for an ecologically ‘strong’ climate convention seem grim. Procedural and institutional factors have limited significance when stakes are high.