ECB Could Handle CO2 Emissions Trading - Germany
Date: 16-Mar-07
Country: GERMANY
"It's nothing other than a financial market and needs to be operated as such," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. "Even monopolies are more transparent than European emissions trading."
"It could be an idea to hand it over to ... the ECB or to a private financial institution. There should be one institution that guarantees transparency and from which market participants can get the necessary information," he said.
The ECB sets monetary policy across the euro zone and keeps a close eye on issues affecting financial stability but does not have formal responsibility for supervising markets.
Since 2005, around 12,000 large-scale energy consuming plants in the European Union have been able to buy and sell permits that allow them to emit carbon dioxide (CO2).
Companies exceeding individual limits can buy unused permits from firms that have come under their emission allowance. This is how the EU has been meeting its Kyoto Protocol obligations.
Reducing CO2 emissions is the point of the UN's Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Critics say that the current system of trading emissions certificates -- trades are often done over the counter -- lacks coherence and transparency and could benefit from centralisation.
If the emissions trading market was improved, it might make it more attractive to the United States, which pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, Gabriel said.
"I believe that the Americans won't allow there to be a functioning financial market in the world which they're not participating in," Gabriel said.
Germany has said it would use its presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) this year to float the idea of making the European emissions trading scheme a global market.
