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With its European Green Deal and the new European Climate Law, the EU has given itself a daunting challenge and a legal obligation to achieve a net 55% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2030 and full climate neutrality by 2050. In order to do this, it has to figure out not only how but also where such large reductions can be made. While the EU has a robust mechanism in its regulatory toolbox for achieving emissions reductions in the form of its Emissions Trading System, at the present moment the ETS does not cover the agricultural sector, which currently amounts to a full 10% of its total greenhouse gas emissions. To date, the EU has been troublingly unsuccessful at effectively reducing its agricultural emissions, though, and this will need to change in order for it to meet its goals by 2030 and 2050. Although the European Commission has not (yet) announced any formal intention to include agriculture into the ETS, it is worth evaluating the prospect of it doing so given the urgency of the present moment and the pressure on the EU to carefully consider any emissions reduction option that is available to it. This paper, therefore, contributes to this discussion by assessing the legal prospect of incorporating the EU's agricultural sector into its ETS. Its primary argument is that while doing so will require complex economic calculations along with some difficult political decision-making, from a legal perspective it would be very feasible and could even bring a number of regulatory and policy 'win-wins' in its wake. The EU's broader legal framework would be quite permissive of it if it does not upset the internal marketplace, and finding the right way to do it could bring the EU's emissions reduction, agricultural and environmental policy goals into closer alignment in ways that its current policy and regulatory frames do not. Furthermore, the ETS was intentionally designed to be a flexible mechanism and it has already demonstrated its ability to be re-tooled to address different economic sectors and new gases, and there is little indication that modifying it to apply to agricultural emissions would be beyond its capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the emissions trading training courses and summer schools of the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) for the developing countries and emerging economies The courses are designed to provide and assist in building expertise for the development and implementation of emissions trading systems across the world. A description of each course is provided.

The goal of this article is to examine the underlying considerations of designing and establishing the regulatory framework of an emissions trading program in China after the National Development and Reform Commission initiated the emissions trading pilots in seven provinces and cities in 2011. The article provides the policy development context and discusses the findings through empirical work on the design features of an emissions trading program in Tianjin. The underlying considerations and constraints are analyzed as followed to set the basis for further research into the regulatory design of an emissions trading program in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the multi-level governance of climate change with a particular focus on the European Union (EU). It examines the relationship between the EU and its Member States (the federalism dimension), particularly in relation to emissions trading, and the relationship between the EU and the rest of the world (the global dimension). The paper argues that we are witnessing a shift in the EU's climate leadership style; a shift that is characterized by an increasing willingness of the EU to use its economic power in a bid to promote effective climate governance elsewhere. We see this in relation to different sectors including aviation, biofuels, energy-intensive products and as a result of increasing EU regulation of carbon offsets in its emissions trading scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a sharp increase in the amount of litigation regarding the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme in recent years. Cases revolve mainly around the limits of the Commission's discretion in reviewing National Allocation Plans (NAPs). This may seem a mere technicality; however, as this article aims to show, it is better described as an undercurrent of legal challenges relating to the allocation of authority between the Member States and the Commission in this particular climate change regime. By examining four cases in particular - United Kingdom v Commission, Germany v Commission, Poland v Commission and Estonia v Commission - attention to these issues will be brought to light, and the idea of caps being simply instrumental in emissions trading refuted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the measures imposed in California to address climate change. It explores different policies in California such as The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and cap-and-trade program and states that their measures will need for coordinated strategies for it has broad set of goals. It adds that with California's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission they shown that effective national program for climate change will require leadership and immediate response.

The amendment of the EU ETS agreed on in December 2008 will see covered entities face new challenges. Due to a more stringent overall reduction target, the emissions trading regime will have a larger influence on the business sector. The basic question "who can get, under what conditions, tradable allowances" will thus be even more relevant than in the initial regime. This paper sheds light on possible uncertainties that industries might face following the new allocation provisions. Both regulatory uncertainty and "business uncertainty" regarding the price to be paid for allowances serve as starting points. By nature, business uncertainty is much more prevalent in the event of auctioning compared to free allocation, which seems to encompass larger regulatory uncertainty, especially for the possible exposed sectors. Moreover, the article highlights the difficulty of designing allocation mechanisms, and some of the complexities that might arise in the course of a trading period. Of particular note is that it cannot be excluded that the executive regulations for auctioning and free allocation need to be amended in order to ensure the intended outcome of the scheme. In this sense, the learning by doing period has not ended at all. The article concludes that, from a governance perspective, any legislator should incorporate the question of regulatory and business uncertainty when introducing emissions trading schemes or major amendments to such schemes. In fact, environmental effectiveness could have also been achieved with the current emissions trading scheme of the Commission had conducted a sufficiently strict inspection of the national allocation plans. For protecting the climate and for ensuring an emission reduction of 20 percent in 2020, the fundamental review was not, in fact, a strict necessity. The trade-off of developing a suitable framework for a level playing field and avoiding windfalls in the context of emissions trading is that industries need to face new regulatory approaches, for which it is not yet completely clear how they will affect their business activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emission trading systems (ETS) have been or will be implemented in more and more states and regions around the world. The objectives of such trading systems, however, can only be reached to full extend if a worldwide ETS comes into effect. Therefore, ETS are forced to join. Against that backdrop, linking of two or more ETS can be an important step towards a global ETS. This article examines whether differences between existing and planned ETS are obstacles for successful linking; to that end, it provides an analytical framework for discussion. It starts with an overview of the development of different ETS (I.), presents evaluation criteria for the assessment of linkages (II.), describes possible types of links (III.), categorises the basic decisions regarding the substantive requirements and scope of application of an ETS (IV.), and examines how different ETS designs affect the chances of a link (V.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meme for carbon markets in 2013 is the increased utilisation of domestic emissions trading as a primary policy tool across a broad spectrum of UNFCCC Parties. Previous issues of the CCLR have addressed developments in China, South Korea, Japan and other jurisdictions.1 In this issue of "In the Market", we will briefly review how Kazakhstan is implementing its emissions trading scheme and the implications of this scheme for the wider region. This article is based on a Workshop sponsored by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development held in Astana on 20 June 2013, at which both the authors were present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on climate change and the laws related to it in the U.S. Topics discussed include the need for policymakers to change their approach for emissions trading, the policies introduced by former U.S. President Barack Obama in this regard, and the decline in greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. Also mentioned is the negative impact President Donald Trump's policies on environmental protection efforts of the U.S.

The article discusses developments in greenhouse gas emissions in European Union (EU) countries. Topics addressed include the report "Trends and projections in Europe 2015" about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the EU between 1990 and 2014, information on the aggregated exchange and use of international credits in the EU emissions trading system (ETS) released by the European Commission, and highlights of the Climate Action Progress report.

The article presents updates on the environmental policy of European Union (EU) countries as of July 2015. It notes on the two decisions to ratify the second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol, the so-called Doha amendment, adopted by the Council of the EU on July 13, 2015. A proposal called COM(2015)337 was published by the European Commission for a Directive amending the EU emissions trading system (ETS) on July 15, 2015.

The article offers information on the developments of the emissions trading systems of the European Union. It explains that the concept of carbon leakage relates to the risk that activities in sectors subject to strong international competition might relocate from the EU to the third countries. It also mentions that the Court of First Instance (CFI) condemned the European Commission in two cases for failure to exercise its power correctly.