The total revenues collected in the EU by the Emissions Trading System in 2018 was of 14.2 billion euro, reveals an ICAP report consulted by energynomics.ro. The overall revenue collected in the EU since the beginning of the program is of 35.9 billion euro, and the average ETS price for 2018 was of 15.82 euro, the document reveals. About 78% of the emissions were issued by the energy sector, 10% by agriculture, 9% by industrial processes and just 3% by waste industry.
The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) represents the central pillar of the EU climate
change policy and is the oldest and still largest ETS for GHGs operating worldwide. Introduced in 2005 and now in its third phase, the system has gone through several reforms and will change again with the start of phase 4 in January 2021. The system covers emissions from the power, industrial, and aviation sectors, with the aviation sector being limited to flights within the European Economic Area (EEA). In 2017, the EU and Switzerland signed an agreement linking the Swiss ETS to the EU ETS—the first such agreement for the EU.
After more than two years of negotiations, in February 2018, the EU Council of Ministers formally approved the reform of the EU ETS for phase 4 (2021-2030). The revised EU ETS Directive entered into force in April 2018. Phase 4 will see a steeper pace of annual emissions cuts required from the covered sectors, from 1.74% to 2.2%.
