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News : ROUNDTABLE ON ARTICLE 24A OF THE REVISED EU ETS DIRECTIVE

15 March 2010

Roundtable on Article 24a of the revised EU ETS Directive

Roundtable on Article 24a of the revised EU ETS Directive - Brussels On the 1st of March 2010, Climate Focus, together with the Belgian Ministry of Health Food Chain Safety and Environment and Caisse des dépôts, organised a roundtable held in Brussels on the potentials of Article 24a of the revised EU ETS Directive for developing a system of domestic offsets within the European Union. Representatives of the EU Commission, the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee, Member States, the private sector and research institutes actively participated with presentations and discussions.

What is Article 24a about?

Article 24a of the revised EU ETS Directive mandates the Commission to adopt implementing legislation which would allow Member States to issue credits or allowances from projects that reduce emissions in sectors outside the scope of the EU ETS.

What are the problems at stake?

The issues surrounding the Article include uncertainties on the interpretation of the text; the design options of the mechanism; the exact role of the EU Commission and for Member States; and the relationship with the Joint Implementation flexible mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

What have been the outcomes of the roundtable?

The contributions and discussions at the roundtable gave an update of Member States experiences with domestic offset projects and focused on various aspects including the state of planning within the EU Commission and the relationship between the 24a mechanism and JI. The main substantial outcomes from the workshop are:

• Article 24a can serve as a ‘safety-net’ if Joint Implementation will not survive a post-2012 agreement
• The Article structure may result in less cumbersome procedures as compared to current offsets regulations
• Article 24a is not a priority of the EU Commission and it is uncertain when a system of domestic offsets will be proposed to Member States (via the Climate Change Committee).
• Various Member States support further debate with the aim to take swift and stringent action

What was the role of Climate Focus?

Climate Focus organised the roundtable on behalf of the Belgian Ministry of Health Food Chain Safety and Environment and Caisse des depots and it authored the background paper for the event and offered a presentation on ‘Article 24a and Joint Implementation’ (speaker: Moritz von Unger, senior legal counsel). The roundtable was chaired by Adriaan Korthuis, Climate Focus Director.

Roundtable materials

Background Paper – ‘Domestic offsets under Article 24a’

Presentations:

Wytze van der Gaast and Vlasis Oikonomou: Non-ETS Offsets: Status, Potential and Methodological Harmonisation
Dimitar Nikov : First experience with JI, France perspectives
Dr. Wolfgang Seidel: Domestic Offset Projects: First Experiences with JI in Germany
Dr. Moritz von Unger: Joint Implementation: A Credit Blueprint for Europe?
Izabela Zborowska: Domestic Offsets - first experiences Poland