With greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreasing by more than 18% in the 1990s, Germany appears to be among the few industrialised countries which are on track to meet the targets they committed themselves to under the Kyoto Protocol. This achievement may appear less remarkable if one takes into...

From an analysis of the available national allocation plans for the first period (2005-2007) of the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), it can be inferred that (i) the total allocation to installations covered under the EU ETS is rather generous and (ii) most EU Member States ban the transfer...

We quantified the volume of free allowances that different national allocation plans proposed to allocate to existing and new installations, with specific reference to the power sector. Most countries continue to allocate based on historic emissions, contrary to hopes for improved allocation...

Based on 18 national allocation plans (NAPs) submitted to the European Commission for phase II (2008-2012) of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), we find that, on average, the ET budgets in phase II are only about 2.6% below historical emissions in 2005, about 3.1% lower than the budgets...

The contribution that no-lose target schemes for non-Annex I (NAI) countries could make to achieve the 2°C target is explored by accounting for the incentives of 18 NAI countries' participation in no-lose target schemes. Using various scenarios, it is shown that implementing uniform no-lose...

The impact of a global phase-out of nuclear energy is assessed for the costs of meeting international climate policy targets for 2020. The analysis is based on simulations with the Prospective Outlook on Long-term Energy Systems (POLES) global energy systems model. The phase-out of nuclear power...