30 November, 2012

Political implications of the long-term effect of surplus from the first and second Kyoto period

Authors

Marion Vieweg, Michiel Schaeffer, Claudine Chen, Johannes Gütschow, Bill Hare, Marcia Rocha

There is a vast surplus of units in Kyoto’s cap-and-trade system. If no solution for the carry-over of this surplus from commtment period to commitment period is found, countries that have put forward a target for the second commitment period may be under no pressuure to deviate from business-as-usual emissions until 2026.

Our analysis finds that the arguments made in support of the full carry-over of CP1 surplus and for 2020 pledges that are well above current emissions are not based on realistic assumptions.

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