Commission presents options to reform the European carbon market
EC, EU: The European Commission is taking two important steps to address the growing imbalance between supply and demand in the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS). As an immediate first step to address the rapid build-up in the surplus of emission allowances, the Commission has proposed to delay (‘back-load’) the auctioning of 900 million allowances in the third phase of the EU ETS starting next year. Today the Commission also adopted a report on the state of the European carbon market which sets out a range of possible structural measures that can be taken to tackle the surplus. (Source: http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/articles/news_2012111401_en.htm)