19 August 2004 - A UK interim report analysing the National Allocation Plans (NAPs) for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) submitted by other Member States to the European Commission (EC) was published today.

The research, funded by the UK's Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) and Defra and carried out by independent consultants ECOFYS, contains two levels of evaluation:

- high level evaluation focuses on progress towards meeting Kyoto targets and an assessment of the development of emissions detailed evaluation against all the criteria in the Emissions Trading Directive

The main conclusions are:

- with some exceptions, the caps imposed by Member States are below the expected business-as-usual emissions other Member States' NAPs show that the EU ETS is not being used to bring industry emissions in line with the reductions needed to meet Kyoto targets many NAPs have little information to judge the basis on which allocation levels have been made

The main conclusions echo previous concerns of DTI and Defra and reiterate a call for the EC to be more transparent in how it has made its own assessments of NAPs.