That’s presuming there is a “European Union” — let alone an emissions trading system — 14 years from now.
About the crash in European carbon prices caused by the glut of carbon permits, Climatewire reports:
The oversupply may reach as much as 48 percent next year, said Per Lekander, an analyst for Swiss-based UBS, as the European Union will sell as many as 300 million new permits from its reserve and more Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) will enter the market in the short term.
“We expect the recent carbon-price decline to escalate into a crash as carbon-market supply should double over the coming months,” Lekander said. “We forecast €5 per ton for 2012-13, with €3 as the floor. We estimate that it will take until 2025 before the oversupply is gone and the ETS works as it was supposed to. [Emphasis added]”
I am willing to bet that China is working on a way to export some of their industrial waste by converting it into counterfeit Euros.