This week, two documents regarding the details of the auctioning procedure of the third phase of the EU ETS and leaked to the press have shown convergence towards a centralised auction platform in the Union after 2012. Despite the opposition of the UK, Germany, Spain and Poland, which are trying to push for national auctioning platforms, a first provisional central structure could be in place to auction 2012 and 2013 allowances, with another permanent structure developed in time for the remaining vintages. In the third phase of the European scheme auctioning of allowances will become the major form of acquiring allowances for many sectors. The drafts describe the new auctioning structure as a “uniform, single round, sealed bid” auction, held at least weekly and mainly limited to ETS participants and regulated financial institutions. The documents indicate that auctions might be cancelled if the price were too low, although no active price management would take place.

Climate Policy News

• This news is extracted from the Climate Policy News : a CMCC weekly column that summarises the latest news on international climate change agreements, the updates on the carbon market and the energy and technology updates in the realm of climate change. Go to the web page and see all previous issues since March 2007.
• This week: EU-ETS: centralised auctions in phase III; Allowance surplus in EU ETS phase II; US-Brazil for Copenhagen Accord; Japan PM supports nuclear energy; Indian climate team renewed; UN climate-finance group nominated;The carbon market this week – Download the March, 1-7, 2010 Newsletter [152 Kb]