Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the technology to filter out air pollutants or paying for additional emissions permits, power
utilities and other polluters would make the more economical choice.
Emissions trading forces the buyer to pay for polluting, while the seller is rewarded
for having reduced emissions. There are currently several emissions trading programmes
in operation worldwide, covering several different pollutants. The largest is the European
Union Emission Trading Scheme, whose purpose is to reduce GHG emissions. In the
United States there is also a national market in sulphur dioxide emissions to reduce acid
launched in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the city of Tokyo has implemented
its own trading scheme. Some companies have even implemented internal emissions
trading schemes. BP, for example, managed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by
one-tenth between 2000 and 2010, a level of success that most national governments have
The greatest difficulty in limiting carbon dioxide emissions is the fact that international
agreement is required. Even a gradually phased-in system of taxes, fines, and permits
would only work if implemented worldwide. If only some countries impose carbon taxes,
industry is likely to migrate to those countries where the burden is lowest. The people
who negotiated the Kyoto treaty foresaw this problem, and created a mechanism whereby
countries can gain 'credits', known as Certified Emission Reduction (CER) units, for
steps taken to reduce GHG emissions, such as capturing methane, and trade these in
exchange for credits allowing them to emit more carbon dioxide. This 'Clean Development
Mechanism' is designed to allow countries maximum flexibility in balancing the needs
of development with their commitments to reduce emissions. Credits may be traded with
other countries or used domestically to increase the allowable quota of GHG emissions.
The Clean Development Mechanism allows industrialized countries to buy CER units
where they are cheapest globally, thus providing an incentive to support emission reduction
projects in developing countries.
Conventional utilities and even oil and gas companies are already starting to invest in
renewable energy. If emissions trading eventually catches on at a global level, the price
of carbon will rise, and so too will the viability of energy sources that produce few or
no emissions. In the short term, this may favour nuclear energy, since it already has the
economy of scale to compete with fossil fuels, but in the longer term the shift is likely to
be towards sustainable renewable energy.
