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Carbon Markets: Linking the International Emission Trading Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS)

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Abstract

The trading of carbon emission permits is an instrument created recently to tackle the climate change problem. From 2005 onward, in particular, the volume and significance of different carbon emission trading schemes have increased spectacularly; despite the fact that new emission trading schemes are appearing, the value of the market had fallen by the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period in 2012. One fundamental reason for this was the uncertainty as to whether a new global agreement or protocol would be reached in 2015. The main goal of this chapter is to offer an overview of International Emission Trading under the Kyoto Protocol together with the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), as the schemes at the core of today’s carbon markets, exploring their basic structure, their main links, and their differences, including a carbon price analysis underlining their fundamental weaknesses and strengths.

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Acknowledgment

This work has been possible thanks to the collaboration of the Energy Working Group, which belongs to the Chair of International Relations (Social Sciences Faculty) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV–EHU).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering School of Bilbao, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Alameda de Urquijo S/N, 48013, Bilbao, Spain

    Itziar Martínez de Alegría

  2. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

    Gonzalo Molina

  3. Chair in International Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

    Belén del Río

Authors
  1. Itziar Martínez de Alegría
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  2. Gonzalo Molina
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  3. Belén del Río
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Itziar Martínez de Alegría .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departmemt of Chemical Engineering, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, USA

    Wei-Yin Chen

  2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST), Nagoya, Japan

    Toshio Suzuki

  3. Institute of Advanced Engineering Technologies, University of Applied Sciences FH Technikum Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Maximilian Lackner

Annex

Annex

See Table 2.

Table 2 Annex B parties to the Kyoto Protocol
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de Alegría, I.M., Molina, G., del Río, B. (2017). Carbon Markets: Linking the International Emission Trading Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In: Chen, WY., Suzuki, T., Lackner, M. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14409-2_57

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