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Environment Minister: Romania eligible again for greenhouse gas allowance trading
Minister of Environment and Forestry Rovana Plumb on Friday, July 13, told a press conference that one year after its right to trade greenhouse gas allowances was suspended, Romania is eligible again for such trading.
'I could not withhold this good news for Romania, namely that Friday, July 13, 2012, at around 2:00 p.m., the Bonn-based Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee decided that Romania is re-eligible for greenhouse gas allowance trading. Practically, as of today at 2:00 p.m., the National Emissions Trading Registry is functional again. This is the result of the co-work of the teams of the Ministry of Environment, the National Agency for Environmental Protection and the Foreign Affairs Ministry,' said Rovana Plumb.
According to her, Romania lost the trading right because of the lack of concern back in 2009 for this operation, which incurred losses of 3.6 billion euros for the country.
'Romania lost the trading right because from 2009 onwards there has been no preoccupation for trading in such allowances. I want to tell you that the surveys needed for the Registry's operation have no longer been performed since 2009 and reports on greenhouse gas emission data were flawed. I can tell you that carelessness and negligence caused Romania to lose 2.3 billion euros over 2009 - 2010. In 2011, Romania lost 1.3 billion euros, but as of today we will make sure that the population is transparently informed about the trading of these allowances, through the procedure set forth under the national legislation ... We will send letters to all EU member states, and we will also resume international communication so that we be able to participate in the free trading market and bring Romania as much money as possible,' said the Minister of Environment.
In late August 2011, the UN Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee decided to suspend Romania's permission to trade greenhouse gas allowances.
The final decision of the Compliance Committee confirms the preliminary conclusions adopted on July 8, 2011, which required Romania to ensure the progress and development of measures aimed at ensuring the proper fulfillment of all activities and functions specific to the national inventory and the national system for estimating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
One year on, Romania has obtained the European Commission's approval for the further free allocation of 71.4 million greenhouse gas allowances to electricity producers between 2013-2020.
The European body thus gave a favorable response to the application submitted on September 30, 2011 by the Romanian Government through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business Environment; as a result, Romania's electricity production sector will get allowances assigned for free for the period 2013-2019.
In addition, according to the cited source, the EC approved this weekend the free allocation of Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) allowances for the power plants in Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic; this nod follows the clearance given in May this year, by Brussels, for the applications of Cyprus, Estonia and Lithuania. The applications of Hungary and Poland are currently being assessed.
Overall, more than 268 million allowances will be allocated for free to power plants in these six countries between 2013-2019. This number will be reduced annually so as to reach zero in 2020.