The Energy Committee of the EU Parliament ratified a draft energy efficiency directive, which includes also a EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) set aside provision.
EU member states would have to establish their binding national energy efficiency targets to be based on specific reference values for each country. Then, the European Commission (EC) would make a motion for 2030 energy savings target by June 2014.
Under the proposed new measures, EU member states would start restoring 2.5% of the total floor area of public buildings with a total useable area of more than 250 m² by January 2014, or find alternative ways to achieve equivalent energy savings. Another important goal that member states have to achieve is an annual end – use energy savings equal to at least 1.5 per cent of their utilities’ energy sales.
The EU Parliament approved also an amendment that will allow the EC to take action by 2012 to withhold the necessary amount of allowances from the 2013 – 2020 phase of the EU carbon market; this measure would cut the permits supply and support carbon prices.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently under examination: the “Coalition for Responsible Regulation”, some heavy industry groups and 37 states, called its limits on vehicle and industrial emissions of GHG into question. They in particular argued that the Agency used uncertain evidence in assessing that GHG emissions put at risk human health. Moreover, the Coalition accused EPA to have applied the Clean Air Act only to the largest stationary sources rather than all the GHG sources.
Australia is setting out its rules in order to distribute U.S $9.2 billion in free carbon permits to polluting industries, while Dubai is planning an ETS, similar to the EU scheme and the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), to reduce GHG emissions.

Read full stories and updates about carbon market in the latest issue of Climate Policy News, by Marinella Davide.

Photo by stanesco.