European Commission reforms CO2 emissions reporting process
BRUSSELS – The European Commission laid out plans yesterday for the rapid release of market-sensitive 2006 carbon emissions data in an attempt to avoid the haphazard process that contributed to a carbon price crash last year. The release of 2005 emissions data last May led to a steep fall in prices for permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) after it showed that governments had given industry more allowances to emit than needed. This year the Commission wants to release as much data as possible at the same time rather than having EU member states publish their statistics separately and on different days. Last year data trickled out from EU governments ahead of the Commission’s release, creating confusion in the market. The Commission has not announced a date for the release of the figures, but an EU source said the data was likely to be published next week. Installations such as power plants and oil refineries that are involved in the emissions trading scheme are required to submit their emissions data by today. The scheme is the 27-nation European Union’s key tool to fight global warming and meet commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. It sets limits on the amount of CO2 that big factories may emit and allows them to trade permits if they overshoot or come in below their caps. Once 80 percent of the 2006 verified emissions data has been submitted by the factories involved in the scheme to a transaction log, it will be made available to the market, the Commission’s environment directorate said on its web site. The Commission said it will start checking the log daily from Monday, April 2. Friday’s statement suggests that the information is likely to come out much earlier than it did last year, when it was released in mid-May. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has said he wants the data to be released in a transparent way. «According to the law, we shall try to be transparent, open, and provide the information to everybody at the same time,» he told reporters earlier this week. Traders have eagerly awaited the 2006 data for further evidence that the first phase of the scheme from 2005-2007 is largely a failure. Carbon prices for that phase are trading at around one euro per ton of CO2, whereas prices for 2008 delivery are trading above 17. The Commission has cracked down on member states for the 2008-2012 trading phase, forcing most to make large cuts in the amount of CO2 permits they proposed to give to industry. For the 2006 data, the Commission said once 80 percent or more of the data has been submitted, it will make an announcement on its web site at 1000 central European time (0800 GMT) before making the figures accessible two hours later. «As of April 2 the European Commission will check on a daily basis whether the completeness ratio for emissions data for 2006 in the Community Independent Transaction Log (CITL) at the EU-25 level has reached 80 percent,» the statement said. It defined the ratio as «2005 emissions of installations with reported 2006 emissions/total 2005 emissions.» The Commission will announce that the 80 pct is reached on http: //ec. europa. eu/environment/climat/emission/citl-en. htm. Unlimited access to the log will then be granted at 1200 central European time (1000 GMT) that day at the following address: http: //ec. europa. eu/environment/ets/.
