European Carbon Trading takes another knock

Reuters are reporting on the growing chaos that is the EU's carbon trading scheme.

Britain will opt out of the EU's common carbon permit auctioning platform from 2013 and set up its own national platform, the department of energy and climate change said.


The UK informed the EU Commission of its decision late on Friday.

All EU member states had to tell the Commission by February 19 whether they will participate in a centralised auctioning platform from 2013 under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Poland and Germany will also opt out, the Commission confirmed on its website on Monday.

The Commission said that despite the three opt-outs, around 60 per cent of the nearly 1 billion allowances to be auctioned annually from 2013 will enter the market via the common platform.

"The Commission's preparations for the procurement of both the common auction platform that will be used by all other member states and the single auction monitor that will monitor auctions on all auction platforms are ongoing," it added.

This of course follows hot on the heals of these reports in the Guardian,

The European Union faces legal and political challenges over its handling of the carbon markets which remain in chaos after a cyber attack forced partial closure of the Emissions Trading Scheme.


EU officials are due in a Belgian court on Monday to answer a request to name companies in possession of stolen allowances after a legal challenge by an Italian company affected by the fraud.

Which just goes to show the the EU's high profile project is in deep, deep trouble.