U.S. Senate studies Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)

Roundtable discussion with experts

The European Union launched the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) in January 2005 as a cornerstone to meet the Kyoto emission targets. The second phase of EU-ETS is currently under development and will be launched in January 2008.

The United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is studying the EU-ETS model and recently organised a roundtable discussion on the subject. The aim was to focus on lessons learned that have a bearing on the design of a CO₂ trading system for the United States.

Six experts were asked two simple questions:

• What was done right in the EU-ETS?
• What was done wrong in the EU-ETS?

Those six participants were Jos Delbeke (Director DG Environment of the European Commission), Per-Otto Wold (Founding partner and CEO of Point Carbon), Edward Garth (Trading Manager Environmental Products of Shell Oil), Jean-Yves Caneill (Project Manager Electricité de France), Bruno Vanderborght (Vice President Climate Protection of Holcim Cement), and A. Denny Ellerman (Senior Lecturer Massachusetts Institute of Technology).