Effect of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) on companies: Interviews with European companies

We visited Belgian and Dutch companies that are covered by EU ETS in November 2007, in order to conduct interviews regarding the impact of the scheme and the resultant performance of these companies. The problems of the EU ETS that emerge from this interview are as follows: (1) the redundancy of emission allowance dampens the incentive to reduce the emission of CO2, (2) the allocation scheme fails to consider inter-industrial and/or inter-district fairness, and (3) since the duration of the National Allocation Plan is too short and highly uncertain, it is difficult to implement a long-term reduction investment plan. As European company officers pointed out, the current EU ETS has several problems. However, the recent political debate on the EU ETS seems to have entered a new dimension toward the second period of the National Allocation Plan. For instance, the cap of CO2 emission in the second period has tightened in comparison with the case in the first period, when the allowance excessive. Furthermore, in January 2008, the European Union set the goal of reducing emission by 20% from the 1990 level, by the year 2020. Moreover, the EU intends to introduce the complete auction of emission allowance after the year 2013 excluding the sector that is expected to experience serious leakage problems. The current EU ETS can be regarded as a CO2 reduction scheme in transition. The policy makers of the Japanese government should behold and draw upon the experiences of the European Union in order to implement appropriate policy measures against global warming in Japan.

Effect of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) on companies: Interviews with European companies

We visited Belgian and Dutch companies that are covered by EU ETS in November 2007, in order to conduct interviews regarding the impact of the scheme and the resultant performance of these companies. The problems of the EU ETS that emerge from this interview are as follows: (1) the redundancy of emission allowance dampens the incentive to reduce the emission of CO2, (2) the allocation scheme fails to consider inter-industrial and/or inter-district fairness, and (3) since the duration of the National Allocation Plan is too short and highly uncertain, it is difficult to implement a long-term reduction investment plan. As European company officers pointed out, the current EU ETS has several problems. However, the recent political debate on the EU ETS seems to have entered a new dimension toward the second period of the National Allocation Plan. For instance, the cap of CO2 emission in the second period has tightened in comparison with the case in the first period, when the allowance excessive. Furthermore, in January 2008, the European Union set the goal of reducing emission by 20% from the 1990 level, by the year 2020. Moreover, the EU intends to introduce the complete auction of emission allowance after the year 2013 excluding the sector that is expected to experience serious leakage problems. The current EU ETS can be regarded as a CO2 reduction scheme in transition. The policy makers of the Japanese government should behold and draw upon the experiences of the European Union in order to implement appropriate policy measures against global warming in Japan

Taming chlorophylls by early eukaryotes underpinned algal interactions and the diversification of the eukaryotes on the oxygenated Earth

Extant eukaryote ecology is primarily sustained by oxygenic photosynthesis, in which chlorophylls play essential roles. The exceptional photosensitivity of chlorophylls allows them to harvest solar energy for photosynthesis, but on the other hand, they also generate cytotoxic reactive oxygen species. A risk of such phototoxicity of the chlorophyll must become particularly prominent upon dynamic cellular interactions that potentially disrupt the mechanisms that are designed to quench photoexcited chlorophylls in the phototrophic cells. Extensive examination of a wide variety of phagotrophic, parasitic, and phototrophic microeukaryotes demonstrates that a catabolic process that converts chlorophylls into nonphotosensitive 13(2),17(3)-cyclopheophorbide enols (CPEs) is phylogenetically ubiquitous among extant eukaryotes. The accumulation of CPEs is identified in phagotrophic algivores belonging to virtually all major eukaryotic assemblages with the exception of Archaeplastida, in which no algivorous species have been reported. In addition, accumulation of CPEs is revealed to be common among phototrophic microeukaryotes (i.e., microalgae) along with dismantling of their secondary chloroplasts. Thus, we infer that CPE-accumulating chlorophyll catabolism (CACC) primarily evolved among algivorous microeukaryotes to detoxify chlorophylls in an early stage of their evolution. Subsequently, it also underpinned photosynthetic endosymbiosis by securing close interactions with photosynthetic machinery containing abundant chlorophylls, which led to the acquisition of secondary chloroplasts. Our results strongly suggest that CACC, which allowed the consumption of oxygenic primary producers, ultimately permitted the successful radiation of the eukaryotes throughout and after the late Proterozoic global oxygenation.</p