Photo Gallery A Complicated and Expensive System
Steel production in Einsenhüttenstadt, a city in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. The closer we come to the next stage in emissions trading, a few fundamental questions are being posed more seriously: Is emissions trading, the way it is being structured today, even feasible? Can it truly be an instrument that achieves its goal in an efficient way, namely to effectively reduce CO2 emissions and slow down climate change? Or is a bureaucratic monster being?
European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard is enthusiastic about the new mechanism. Emissions trading is the best solution the world has seen, the Danish national said recently, "despite some problems and challenges in the beginning."
A worker at a Cemex cement plant in Rüdersdorf, a city near the German capital Berlin. "We are being literally inundated with laws," says Cemex carbon manager Peter Scur. When the third stage of the European emissions trading program starts in 2013, it will actually cost companies real money when their plants emit large amounts of carbon dioxide.
