World Wildlife Fund has a helpful 8-page position statement that outlines the key features of the European Union’s cap and trade program (called the Emissions Trading Scheme, or ETS for short.) It does a nice job of hitting on the central mistakes that Europe has made: over-allocation; windfall profits to polluters; and a rickety offsets program.
Unfortunately, the document is not really written for beginners. But folks need more access to good information about Europe’s carbon trading program, and I haven’t encountered many other good concise descriptions of the ETS. If readers know of any, please let me know.
