EU: Emissions Trading Scheme

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Bradshaw]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme in the light of recent allegations of fraud in the trading of permits.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)]

My Lords, the European Union emissions trading system continues to provide an effective means of incentivising cost-effective reductions in emissions from heavy industry. The UK’s ETS registry is widely seen as the most secure in Europe and has not suffered any cyberattacks. The Government have been working closely with the European Commission to demonstrate the security of the UK registry, and I can confirm that it will reopen tomorrow morning. We will continue to work to ensure improved levels of security in other member states’ registries. I refer the noble Lord to the Written Ministerial Statement made to the House of Commons by Gregory Barker this morning.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that the trading scheme is the basis on which airlines are able, for example, to claim credits for the fuel they burn, and that any weakness in the system and the system of certificates of origin would be a very serious blow to the industry?

[Lord Marland]

I totally agree with that statement. I would just point out to the noble Lord that airlines will not join the system until 2012, so it is hard to evaluate the role of the system in that regard. By way of evaluation, it will be very interesting to see how it works, because airlines will be registering their carbon in the country to which they send their planes most often rather than in the country where they are domiciled. So there are one or two things that need to be looked at before 2012. However, I completely agree with the noble Lord in the sentiment of his question.