Emissions and Allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System after the Paris Agreement

Abstract

In this paper, I examine how allowances allocation affected emissions of power sector installations in the EU ETS following the Paris Agreements. The dataset I use covers the 2010-2022 period, includes the emissions and allowances of 4,498 installations operating in power sector across the 27 Member States of the European Union. I discover that installations receiving lower allowances in the first quartile (Q1) reduced their emissions by 3.5% from 2016 to 2022 compared to the 2010-2015 period. I find no evidence on the installations in second, third and fourth quartiles due to the country specific developments. I also show that country characteristics have a crucial role in policy effectiveness because the emissions of installations located in lower-income Member States entered into the EU at later stages did not fall.