Common use of The Future Clause in Contracts

The Future. The Commission is considering the extension of the scope of the ETS in a variety of ways, including gases and installations/activities covered.75 It is also considering linking the ETS with third countries’ national or sub-national emissions trading schemes,76 and other fine-tuning of the scheme.77 More fundamentally, in its January 2008 proposals to revamp the ETS, the Commission has put forward the idea of implementing a single EU- wide cap after 2012 and harmonising criteria for granting allowances, with a major increase in auctioning allowances.78 This would mean that Member States would no longer have to produce NAPs, as allowances would effectively be granted according to objective criteria set at Community level. A further possibility which has been mooted by, inter alia, French president ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ and Commission president ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, is the introduction of “carbon tariffs” on imports from countries which have not signed up to international climate change obligations (which could include, for instance, the United States and China), in order that EU firms are not placed at a disadvantage by the ETS’s emissions caps.79 72 See further, Bazelmans, “De koppeling van CDM en JI aan het Europese emissiehandelssyteem”, Nederlands tijdschrift voor Europees recht 6 (2004) 151. 73 See Decision 2006/780 on avoiding double counting of greenhouse gas emission reductions under the Community emissions trading scheme for project activities under the Kyoto Protocol OJ 2006 L 316/12, which requires Member States to ensure that no ERUs or CERs are issued for emission reductions from installations which participate in the ETS, and Langrock and Sterk, “The Developing Market for CERs: Current Status and Challenges Ahead” JEEPL 2(2005) 101. 74 See Decision 146/2007 of the EEA Joint Committee, not yet published in the OJ. 75 See Commission Communication, "Building a global carbon market - Report pursuant to Article 30 of Directive 2003/87/EC" COM (2006) 676, Commission Proposal for a Directive to extend and improve the functioning of the EU ETS, COM (2008) 30 (proposal to extend to ammonia and aluminium producers, and to nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbon gases), and Commission proposal for a Directive on the geological storage of carbon dioxide, COM (2008) 18. 76 The primary potential partners (i.e., who have trading schemes in place for at least part of the territory) are Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, as well as the US state California. See ▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, “Transnational Aspects of a Linked Carbon Market” 2 Carbon and Climate Law Review (2008) 190 and, further, the launch of the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) in October 2007, an international forum for governments and public authorities involved in emissions trading systems. 77 For example, in its Green Paper on market-based instruments for environmental and related policy purposes, COM (2007) 140 final, the Commission raised the possibility of fine-tuning the boundaries between the 2003 Energy Taxation Directive, discussed above, and the EU’s ETS, to avoid overlap between the two systems while minimising “loopholes” whereby certain operators might fall outside both schemes. 78 Commission Proposal for a Directive to extend and improve the functioning of the EU ETS, COM (2008) 30 final. 79 See the speech of Commission president ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ of January 21, 2008, “Europe’s climate change opportunity”, SPEECH/08/26 and Financial Times, “▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ warns China of carbon tariffs”, November 27, 2007.