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Excess Emission Rights Are Flaw of Climate Treaty, EU Says
2010-10-26 13:04:11.921 GMT
By Ewa Krukowska
Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Surplus emission rights granted to
nations are a "major flaw" of the climate-protection Kyoto
Protocol that must be solved if the treaty is to be extended
beyond 2012, a senior European Union official said.
"We're talking about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide;
compare that to the entire EU emissions trading system that is
hardly 2 billion tons," Jos Delbeke, director general for
climate at the European Commission, told a seminar in Brussels
today.
Delbeke said climate negotiators worldwide should discuss
whether the surplus Assigned Amount Units, known as AAUs, are
not "a sort of thing that belongs to the history rather than to
the future of the Kyoto Protocol."
"It is true that there are different opinions in Europe
because lots of our new member states are having parts of these
AAUs," he said. "What we're telling our new member states is
that this is an internal question, we can deal with those AAUs
internally in the EU and this should be dissociated from the
international negotiations stance that we're taking."
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To contact the reporter on this story:
Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at +32-2-237-4331 or
ekrukowska@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jones Hayden at +32-2-285-4312 or
jhayden1@bloomberg.net
