The EU emission trading scheme

de A. Denny Ellerman

As the world's first multi-national cap-and-trade system for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) can be seen as a prototype for an eventual global climate regime. This paper draws on the first four years of experience with the EU ETS to develop insights about the challenges that can be expected to emerge in a broader program and to suggest potential solutions.