Monitoring and tracking are less burdensome than some regulations. Incentives exist within the scheme to achieve more than the minimum, and the scheme has already stimulated more innovation in technology. In Europe, too, Germany is already engaged in very limited trading schemes. Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands have also all used a limited form of trading scheme for existing power stations to implement EU limits of sulphur dioxide emissions. The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry has also proposed a sulphur trading scheme, in which permits would be allocated to both sulphur emitters and producers of oil products.
Emissions trading is inevitably complex.
It poses many difficult questions, not least about how emissions permits are best allocated. But it is increasingly being considered around the world as a serious tool in the drive to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Britain needs to build on the momentum achieved by the work of the CBI and ACBE, and introduce our own focused emissions trading scheme soon. My Bill would allow businesses to choose whether to join a trading scheme, but, once committed, a business would be committed for a determined length of time, and its participation in the scheme would be on a statutory footing. The scheme would be linked with the climate change levy and the negotiating agreements.