IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v14y2014i2p64-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rescuing EU Emissions Trading: Mission Impossible?

Author

Listed:
  • Jørgen Wettestad

    (Jørgen Wettestad is a research professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute.)

Abstract

Is rescuing the EU's 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. © 2014 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Jørgen Wettestad, 2014. "Rescuing EU Emissions Trading: Mission Impossible?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 14(2), pages 64-81, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:2:p:64-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00229
    File Function: link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raymond, Leigh, 2019. "Policy perspective:Building political support for carbon pricing—Lessons from cap-and-trade policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Coraline Goron & Cyril Cassisa, 2017. "Regulatory Institutions and Market-Based Climate Policy in China," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(1), pages 99-120, February.
    3. Ergen, Timur & Schmitz, Luuk, 2023. "The sunshine problem: Climate change and managed decline in the European Union," MPIfG Discussion Paper 23/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Sato, Misato & Rafaty, Ryan & Calel, Raphael & Grubb, Michael, 2022. "Allocation, allocation, allocation! The political economy of the development of the European Union Emissions Trading System," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115431, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Ruf, Julia Anna, 2017. "A policy analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System and its crisis," IPE Working Papers 82/2017, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    6. Torbjørg Jevnaker & Jørgen Wettestad, 2017. "Ratcheting Up Carbon Trade: The Politics of Reforming EU Emissions Trading," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 105-124, May.
    7. Jon Birger Skjærseth, 2017. "The European Commission’s Shifting Climate Leadership," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 84-104, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    emissions trading; European Union;

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:2:p:64-81. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.