What is the EU emission trading scheme?

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the European Union's climate change policy tool, which helps industries to cut their CO₂ emissions in a cost-effective way. It requires a cap on emissions for all large CO₂ emission sources.

In 2005, the EU ETS covered approximately:

• 47 % of the total CO₂ emissions in the EU-15;
• 39 % of total greenhouse gas emissions in EU-15;
• 49 % of the total CO₂ emission in the EU-25;
• 41 % of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-25.

In general, EU ETS information has been used by EU Member States as one input for calculating total CO₂ emissions for the energy and industrial processes sectors in this report. However, an explicit quantification of the contribution of the EU ETS to total CO₂ emissions at sectoral and sub-sectoral level is not yet available for EU-15 or EU-25.

In the EU-15, the ETS is estimated to cut 3.4 % from base-year emissions.

See more information on the European Commission website.