Talk:European Union Emissions Trading System

The National Allocation Plans for Phase II, the first of which were announced on 29 November 2006, will result in an average cut of nearly 7% below the 2005 emission levels.[27] However, the inclusion of offsets undermines this claim. According to verified EU data from 2008, the ETS saw an emissions reduction of 3 per cent, or 50 million tons, but it also included at least 80 million tons of “carbon offsets” which were bought as part of the scheme.[28]

The environmental effectiveness of the scheme rests on the tightness of the caps. Phase 1 was widely believed to be over-allocated, implying that little, if any, additional overall emission reductions have been achieved.