Sunday, June 17, 2007

Britain’s electricity generators could make windfall profits...

...of about £1.5bn a year from the European Union’s emissions trading scheme, industry estimates suggest, raising further questions about the operation of the programme intended to combat global warming.

From the Financial Times

Putting it a little more bluntly is The Daily Mail

Power firms in £2bn carbon trade rip-off

‘But the carbon trading scheme is designed to bring down carbon emissions, not create windfall profits for the power companies,’ he said.

‘Some of the worst polluters have been given free permits to produce carbon, and have then passed on the cost of these allowances to customers as if they had paid for them. It’s a design fault in the scheme which needs to be rectified.’