Hot topic: AAU surplus. Political implications of the long-term effect of surplus from the first and second Kyoto period

Date Published 2012, November 30

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 (CP2) may be under no pressuure to deviate from business-as-usual (BAU) emissions until 2026.