Isra-Mart srl : Businesses to have say on EU ETS reporting reforms

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Isra-Mart srl news:

Businesses have been urged to provide their views on how the European Union should design new legislation aimed at improving the reliability of greenhouse gas emissions reporting required under the bloc's flagship cap-and-trade scheme.

The European Commission's Climate Action department launched an eight-week public consultation late last week, seeking views on how it should adopt two new pieces of legislation as part of its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - one on monitoring and reporting and one on accreditation and verification.
The new new EU ETS rules, slated to be implemented at the end of this year, aim to create a common reporting approach for industries across the EU. The Commission said that the development of a more standardised approach to reporting would drive greater consistency, transparency, reliability and cost-effectiveness across the ETS.

The EU ETS is designed to combat climate change by limiting the amount of greenhouse gases which factories, power plants and other businesses can emit. Companies receive tradable emission allowances, and must then surrender enough allowances to cover all their emissions at the end of the year, or face heavy fines.

However, companies which reduce their emissions can keep any spare allowances or sell them to another company which is short of credits, providing an additional revenue stream and a financial incentive to cut emissions.

The monitoring and reporting guidelines aim to ensure that companies submit reliable emissions data so that the system works effectively and firms do not under report their level of emissions.

The consultation launched on Friday forms part of a broader consultation of all member states, industry and the general public on reforming the ETS as it prepares for its next phase, which begins in 2013.

Phase three of the ETS will run until 2020 and is intended to extend the scheme to cover a larger number of companies, including airlines, and tighten the caps imposed on businesses, driving up the cost of carbon and resulting in deeper emission reductions.

The Commission said that it will assess and publish any replies and feed them into the final draft legislation.