In 2005, the European Union (EU) put into place a carbon trading scheme. Prices for carbon permits promptly plunged, and have remained depressed since then. The price for a permit to emit a tonne of CO2 went from 21.59 Euros in 2005, to 17.28 in 2006, to 0.68 in 2007, to 2.16 in 2008, to 13.03 in 2009. Today, however, you will be glad to know that some academics declared the scheme a resounding success …
Say what? Here’s what Reuters News Service had to say:
(Reuters) – The European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is a success and its flaws have not harmed its basic aim of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, multi-national research showed on Friday.
Experts at French state bank Caisse des Depots, the Paris-Dauphine University, the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research in the United States and University College Dublin collaborated to evaluate the scheme’s trial period, which has widely been viewed as a failure.
The EU’s flagship carbon trading scheme requires companies to buy permits for each tonne of carbon they emit. Carbon output is capped and the level is lowered year by year.
The scheme’s first trading phase ran from 2005 to 2007. Installations in the 27-nation bloc were over-allocated with carbon permits and the carbon price fell to zero.
The research concluded that although there were many problems in the first phase, they were overcome and did not hamper the scheme’s ultimate objective of reducing emissions. … SOURCE
Now, as some of you might have noticed, I’m a suspicious fellow and I like to run the numbers myself. So, what numbers should we be looking at here?
After some thought, I decided that I would look at the change from the four years prior to the institution of the carbon trading scheme (2001 through 2004), to the first four years of the scheme (2005 through 2008). [Figures for 2009 are not yet available] That would let me see if things improved or got worse.
The most logical measures to look at, it seemed to me, were per capita fuel use and CO2 emissions . (Excel spreadsheet) Using per capita figures removes the effects of population changes . If we just looked at fuel use, for example, a population increase would affect the fuel use. I didn’t want to be measuring the effect of population changes, so I used per capita figures.
Using those measures, I decided to compare the EU with the US. Their economies are of a comparable size and development. Since the US is the global CO2 pariah, and has no carbon trading scheme, that would give me a good baseline to compare with the EU performance.
Without further prologue, here are my results:
Figure 1. Percentage change from the period before the EU carbon trading scheme (average 2001-2004) to the period after the carbon trading scheme (average 2005-2008). All measurements are per capita.
By every single measure, the US has outperformed the EU. And the most telling point is that per capita, EU carbon dioxide emissions have increased since 2005 when the scheme started, while US carbon dioxide emissions have decreased. For a scheme designed to reduce emissions, that’s not good news.
The US did better by every measure than the EU, and did it without any restriction on carbon. Now perhaps some folks in a think-tank somewhere call that a whacking great success for the trading scheme … but not on my planet. Call me crazy, but my conclusion is that the EU carbon trading scheme was a failure.
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Does anyone else smell Bernie Madoff in all this? Well, actually, it’s a lot BIGGER than little Bernie’s get rich, stay rich, and juggle the books capper. Who are the idiots that are paying for these worthless “credits”?
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and a number of other states need to get in on this too. Imagine all the coal they could sell, not mine, not burn, and for what? How about they get together and pay off the National Debt for a start? Shouldn’t take more than a year. Understand Al Gore and George Soros and the Chinese would love to buy all our coal reserves.
PS: Drilling Continental Shelf for Oil? I guess the Pres and the DNC have caved in. Isn’t there a lot of under the table “political donations” in something like this? Bet if the Goppers tried this they’d all be tarred and lynched.
I wonder how many credits the ‘researchers’ involved with the AGW cover up at East Anglia purchased on the cheap — or got for free ?
The EU comprises advanced Western economies plus the cast off, ex-Soviet satelite states (such as Poland and Romania) who are still in 1950s as far energy resources and transport are concerned.
The EU Accession States (as these ex-Communist states) are now called, are heavily dependent on coal for electricity and use traditional coal fired steam locomotives on their railway systems.
Carbon trading is a pure money system below even Multilevel Marketing or a good Ponzi scheme and was never meant to or designed to do anything to or for the environment. True, an important facet of its marketing shtick is to make the general, drive-by public believe that it will…. but let’s not go there. But first you have to create a need which in this case means you have to have “something” that is damaging the environment to instill fear in the heart of your worshipers. Ah ha! Runaway warming of the atmosphere! Cause? CO2! Therefore –
Fear of AGW caused by CO2 from the conversion of Carbon to Energy relived by Carbon Trading Certificates bought by Idiots (or anybody we can coerce by law suit) with hard cold $. Buy two and call me in the morning. Here’s the formula-
I-$=CTC
——– X GW = -F
E-C+CO2
and Soros makes billions….
Definitely OT, but take a look at the latest Arctic sea-ice extent:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Holy Cow! The Arctic ice mass keeps growing, and growing…
I’m surprised somebody hasn’t figured out a way to make money from this! Sea Ice Credits, anyone?
Oil is too precious to drill and consume one’s own resources. It is far better to buy oil from another country, and have them deplete their resources. Even better to deplete the oil from hostile nations.
In time of war, the country or allied countries with sufficient oil have a good chance at winning. Without oil, they have zero chance. Does anyone think global wars are a thing of the past?
The USA was the major oil provider to the Allies during WWII, a key contributing factor to the Allies’ victory.
source: The Prize by Daniel Yergin.
Therefore, Obama is an idiot to open up offshore drilling.
And Obama, according to the EU criticism, cannot be relied upon to stand still in a position for 5 minutes. The promise he keeps is the last one he makes, so far as his 1.25 yr track record goes. Cap & Trade, if he gets it, will look like whatever the way the scrambled eggs come out of the frying pan. The eggs, in this case, would be the health of the US Economy that the winner of the Super-O Lotto will feast upon.
Just a point of interest, ~70 million people joind the EU on the 1st of May, 2004. Another ~30 million joined in 2007. You should really compare the old 15 member EU to the USA, a much better fit in population, technology and income.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (10:10:10) :
That’s a perfectly good idea, the Arctic Sea-Ice Xchange. Bill Gates is good for a few billion to fund the IPO. Or, we could do something along the lines of the Breakup Contest for the Yukon. Only the winner would predict the Sea Ice Max or Min extent closer than anyone else.
Put your money where your trend line is. 2 winners/year. Anybody can play.
I like it.
CRS Dr. Ph,
You point out:
“http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Holy Cow! The Arctic ice mass keeps growing, and growing…”
But of course you know that this is in line to climate change predictions.
I dislike the EU scheme for the reasons cited in other comments but, in fairness re the US comparison, a lot of the Eastern new EU accession countries were and are years behind economically and re energy production. Growth from joinig the EU, eg by inward investment to take account of cheaper labour, not all from the “older” EU by any means, would likely have put up CO2 disproportionately.
So, the simple comparison may be misleading. Maybe it could be divided betwenn the “old” and “new” EU countries?
The fact remains tho’ that if any economy does cap and trade out of step with competitors like China, that economy is killing itself. And for no good reason since CO2 isn’t the huge danger we’ve been told it was. We do eventually have to get off oil, gas and coal tho’ but not for many years?
Results are correct.
If you look at emissions per dollar since 1990 (when climate change was recognised as a problem), you find that the USA has consistently outperformed the EU. You also find that there is no noticable difference between subsequent US governments. There is a difference in the UK: Thatcher/Mayor outperformed Blair/Brown.
Sarcasm on: Anthony, you just don’t understand. The Europeans are ahead of the US in creating CO2 regulation. It’s the pureness of the thought that counts, not actual CO2 emissions.
Heavier sarcasm: If the trading price of CO2 is too low, the UN governments can decree a floor price. There’s no problem so great that it can’t be solved by more regulation. That’s why we need world socialism. After all, we MUST avert the coming climate tragedy.
Sarcasm off: What really scares me is Obama’s $360 billion in next year’s budget coming from carbon tax. That’s a tax on electricity. Your rates and mine are going to increase by $360 billion. The difference is that we’ll be paying it to the power company, not the IRS. See – that makes evil big business more evil. (OK, that last sentence had the sarcasm toggle on again)
Roger Sowell (10:28:12) – Thank you . To the best of my knowledge , you’re the first to have stated this in a long time . I remember learning this in high school back in the early seventies , which was when world oil supplies were supposed to begin diminishing , according to the peak oil theory . US oil fields were considered a strategic resource . Most people who rail against our “dependence” on foriegn oil never really got this . However , if we don’t develop these resources soon , we may get caught with our pants down if some immediate exigency arises . Besides , peak oil hasn’t really played out yet has it ?
keith in Hastings UK (10:39:26) : Or anyone – does anybody know when the pumps pump no more, or when some crazed oil trader on the floor shouts “peak oil”? Just wondering.
Well it seems you can do anything with statistics, for 2008, the EU produced around 4,500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide with a population of around 500 million while the the US produced 6,371 million tonnes, with a population around 310 million. “By every single measure, the US has outperformed the EU.”, LOL, you sure you dont work for The WWF.
tides (11:19:40):
Total U.S. CO2 emissions have been flat for twenty years, even though we are one of the only countries with a rapidly rising population: click
U.S. emissions vs global emissions: click
Everyone talks about reducing emissions, but who walks the walk? click
@ur momisugly P Walker (11:08:53) :
Roger Sowell (10:28:12) – Thank you . To the best of my knowledge , you’re the first to have stated this in a long time . I remember learning this in high school back in the early seventies , which was when world oil supplies were supposed to begin diminishing , according to the peak oil theory . US oil fields were considered a strategic resource . Most people who rail against our “dependence” on foriegn oil never really got this . However , if we don’t develop these resources soon , we may get caught with our pants down if some immediate exigency arises . Besides , peak oil hasn’t really played out yet has it ?
That’s true, but another thing to remember is that oil, gas, coal, etc. are fungible currencies, not merely commodities.
Roger Sowell (10:23:12)
I don’t know if you are serious, but the lag time between opening up a field for leases and actually getting some fuel out of it is on the order of a a decade. Unless you are expecting a really, really, really long war, oil in un-leased fields at the start of the war will be there at the end of the war.
The only way that Yergin’s plan could work would be to lease the fields, drill the wells, and then just cap them until there is a war … like that’s gonna happen.
Conclusion? If we want to have our own oil in case of a war, we should start leasing now.
“Everyone talks about reducing emissions, but who walks the walk? ”
Idiots?
tides (11:19:40)
I didn’t realize anyone would be so literal. When I said “by every single measure”, I didn’t think someone would actually take it as “by any measure of any imaginable thing that anyone can possibly dream up”.
I meant, obviously, by any of the measures that I used – the changes in per capita oil, gas, coal, and CO2 from the first period to the second. By any of those measures, per capita the US did better than the EU.
But you likely knew that …
keith in Hastings UK (10:39:26)
Keith, each country is compared only with itself. That’s why I looked at the changes before and after the start of the carbon trading scheme. Because of that, it shouldn’t make a difference whether it was a more developed or a less developed country.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell (10:23:12) :
Oil is too precious to drill and consume one’s own resources. It is far better to buy oil from another country, and have them deplete their resources. Even better to deplete the oil from hostile nations.
In time of war, the country or allied countries with sufficient oil have a good chance at winning. Without oil, they have zero chance. Does anyone think global wars are a thing of the past?
The USA was the major oil provider to the Allies during WWII, a key contributing factor to the Allies’ victory.
source: The Prize by Daniel Yergin.
Therefore, Obama is an idiot to open up offshore drilling.
While this has been true in the past, it will not necessarily be true in the future. It depends on the nature of the conflict. These small “conventional” wars/police actions currently in vogue, that require “boot’s on the ground” do indeed require massive expenditure’s of oil. However a true all out global war would not necessarily require that. Nuclear and related weaponry (including political, economic, and cyber attacks on the opponent’s infrastructure ) substantially reduce the need for oil, since there would be no extended land or sea battles, such as those of WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc. . There is an obvious downside of course, but if it’s an existential issue then there are no rules.
These scenario’s are studied and played out in the war colleges of all major nations on a regular basis. The objective is always to convince the opponent that to continue the fight is not in their best interest. The methods for how that is accomplished are many and varied, and are not restricted to historical rules of engagement.
From:
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/
“The 727-million-barrel U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Established in the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the SPR provides the President with a powerful response option should a disruption in commercial oil supplies threaten the U.S. economy. It also allows the United States to meet part of its International Energy Agency obligation to maintain emergency oil stocks, and it provides a national defense fuel reserve. “
tides (10:27:39) : edit
I just went to look at the numbers. The old EU15 did about 1% better than the total EU across the board.