EU carbon trade cap on foreign credits agreed

EU negotiators have agreed to cap access by firms in the EU's carbon trading scheme to international carbon credits at 50 per cent of their emission reduction effort.

MEPs and the French EU presidency agreed the cap in the early hours of Wednesday morning during negotiations on plans to revise the EU emission trading scheme (ETS), European parliament rapporteur MEP Avril Doyle told ENDS.

The cap would be reviewed if the EU upped its overall greenhouse gas emission reduction goal for 2020 from 20 to 30 per cent in the event of an international climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009.