Gouverner le climat, construire l'Europe : l'histoire de la création d'un marché du carbone (ETS)

Abstract

The European leadership strategy in the area of international climate policies consists of two components : numerical objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and a European carbon market (ETS) to achieve these reductions. Reexamining the history of the ETS’ adoption in the early 2000s helps elucidate the paradox of this tool’s rapid promotion. In the 1990s, community institutions had taken a very different stance, with Europe supporting an “ecotax” project and rejecting recourse to the carbon market and other “flexible mechanisms”. Three factors shaped the new direction taken by European climate policies : the emergence in the 1970s of a movement critical of environmental regulation, which, in contrast to market-based tools, was seen as ineffective and excessively rigid by economists and legal scholars ; political negotiations between Rio and Kyoto, with their power struggles, uncertainties and the failure of inter-European negotiations regarding a tax-based approach ; the debate over the principle of subsidiarity, the particular moment in the European construction in which the Commission ratified the creation of the carbon market. ■