The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme ('EU ETS') began on 1 January 2005. The implementation of the EU ETS has raised interest in market-based approaches to achieving environmental and related public policy goals in the EU, particularly those related to promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Indeed, national and regional markets in tradable green certificates ('TGCs') and (to a lesser extent) tradable white certificates ('TWCs') already exist. Green certificate schemes are established or proposed in a number of Member States (e.g., Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) and form part of a growing portfolio of measures to achieve the renewable targets outlined in Directive 2001/77/EC. White certificate schemes are considerably less widespread, although schemes have been established in Italy and the UK and further activity may be stimulated by the Commission proposal on energy services
(COM(2003)739). Both the renewables Directive and the energy services proposal envisage the possible evolution and harmonisation of these instruments into EU-wide certificate schemes. This study has two major objectives:
-1. Analyse interactions among EU ETS and green/white certificate markets. The first major objective is to describe the interactions between green and white certificate programmes and the EU ETS.
-2. Assess implications of interactions for the policy objectives of the EU ETS. The second major objective deals with the implications of green/white certificate programmes for the objectives of the EU ETS
