§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what pecuniary incentives offered to those companies volunteering to place an absolute cap on their emissions under the UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme(a) since its inception and (b) for its duration. [48978]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 15 April 2002]: At the inception of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, the Government offered £215 million to encourage organisations to take on voluntary binding emissions reductions targets for their greenhouse gas emissions. This incentive money was allocated to organisations through an auction in March. 34 organisations hid into the final round, taking on binding emission reduction targets totalling 4,028,176 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by the end of the five years of the scheme. The auction cleared after nine rounds at a price of £53.37 per tonne of CO, equivalent emission reduction. After tax, and when related to the reduction from the baseline for each year, this equates to about £12.50 per tonne. Firms will receive their annual incentive payments only after they have achieved their annual emission reduction targets.