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Accounting for Climate Change pp 109–118Cite as

Extension of EU Emissions Trading Scheme to Other Sectors and Gases: Consequences for Uncertainty of Total Tradable Amount

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Abstract

Emissions trading in the European Union (EU), covering the least uncertain emission sources of greenhouse gas emission inventories (CO2 from combustion and selected industrial processes in large installations), began in 2005. During the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012), the emissions trading between Parties to the Protocol will cover all greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6) and sectors (energy, industry, agriculture, waste, and selected land-use activities) included in the Protocol. In this paper, we estimate the uncertainties in different emissions trading schemes based on uncertainties in corresponding inventories. According to the results, uncertainty in emissions from the EU15 and the EU25 included in the first phase of the EU emissions trading scheme (2005–2007) is ±3% (at 95% confidence interval relative to the mean value). If the trading were extended to CH4 and N2O, in addition to CO2, but no new emissions sectors were included, the tradable amount of emissions would increase by only 2% and the uncertainty in the emissions would range from −4 to +8%. Finally, uncertainty in emissions included in emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol was estimated to vary from −6 to +21%. Inclusion of removals from forest-related activities under the Kyoto Protocol did not notably affect uncertainty, as the volume of these removals is estimated to be small.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Benviroc Ltd, Espoo, Finland

    S. Monni

  2. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland

    S. Syri & I. Savolainen

  3. Statistics Finland, Helsinki, Finland

    R. Pipatti

Authors
  1. S. Monni
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  2. S. Syri
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  3. R. Pipatti
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  4. I. Savolainen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. Monni .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ICF International, Washington, DC, USA

    Daniel Lieberman

  2. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Matthias Jonas

  3. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Zbigniew Nahorski

  4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Sten Nilsson

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© 2007 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.

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Monni, S., Syri, S., Pipatti, R., Savolainen, I. (2007). Extension of EU Emissions Trading Scheme to Other Sectors and Gases: Consequences for Uncertainty of Total Tradable Amount. In: Lieberman, D., Jonas, M., Nahorski, Z., Nilsson, S. (eds) Accounting for Climate Change. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5930-8_9

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