(A high price to pay for dubious benefits)
Recently, the European Union (EU) launched the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) as a way to meets its Kyoto Protocol commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent below what the EU emitted in 1990. An analysis by Ronald Bailey finds that the ETS is not significantly stopping global warming and costs far more than expected.
The ETS allows both CO2 producers and emitters to trade permits. It has allocated 2.2 billion allowances to emit CO2 among the 11,500 facilities it covers. According to Bailey:
Despite the negligible effects, the ETS is expensive:
Bailey argues that the EU’s experience demonstrates that even with economic markets, reducing CO2 emissions will be very costly.
Source: Ronald Bailey, This Market is Sending A Signal, Tech Central Station, December 6, 2005.
For text: http://www.techcentralstation.com/120605C.html
For more on the Environment: http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=impacts-and-responses
FMF Policy Bulletin/ 10 January 2006
