Information report on greenhouse gas emission trading systems, in the name of the Sustainable Development and Land Management Commission

In its first part, this report explains the choice of trading systems due to the impossibility to define taxes on carbon emissions and to the influence of international negotiations. It also describes the operation of the European system with its three allocation phases (an experimental framework between 2005 and 2007, an actually constraining framework between 2008 and 2012, and a sustainable frame from 2013), and outlines the realistic character of emission reduction objective by 2020. It identifies and discusses the weaknesses of the European system, notably due to an insufficiently regulated market and to a partial taking into account of emission. The second part identifies ways to improve the system by extending it (including new sectors, taking some particular emissions into account, and valuing carbon sequestration), by preserving the competitiveness of European industries, and by aiming at the construction of a de-carbonated Europe