|
RRI newsletter subcription
(e-mail address):
|
| Romania Without Green |
| (2011-08-29) |
| Last updated: 2011-08-30 14:19 EET |
Romania was banned from selling its green certificates after irregularities were revealed in the functioning of the mechanism for national evaluation during 2010. The Ministry of the Environment in Bucharest made the announcement. The decision was taken by the UN committee in charge of evaluating conformity with the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and will stand until conformity is achieved. Under the protocol, if a signatory state produces less pollution than anticipated, it can sell green certificates to countries that exceed stated limits. Romania has an extra 300 million certificates, which could have resulted in 3 billion Euros flowing into the state budget, in 2009.
In 2011, the price of certificates, set on a free market at several stock exchanges, fell by half, so now the certificates would only be worth 1.5 billion Euros. The money could be used for green technologies, reforestation or waste recycling. Minister of the Environment Laszlo Borbely explained that the government did not correctly report the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the country, which is the basis for issuing the green certificates, and that the guilty party was the National Environmental Protection Agency. Romanian officials hope that this ban would last only three or four months.
Until then, however, Bucharest has to put in place an adequate and viable mechanism for evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. In order to do that, Romania would have to revise its national inventory, and then submit it for evaluation in order to return to eligibility status. Late last year, the authorities in Bucharest negotiated the sale of these certificates with countries that exceeded Kyoto commitments, such as Japan, Canada, Spain and Portugal.
The Romanian media has been commenting across the board on Romania’s risk of losing the money involved during a time of financial crisis. Analysts claim that Romania’s chances of selling its certificates are almost nil, given that the deadline by which they have to be sold, 2012, is not that far off, and certificates are only valid for a given year, not cumulative from one year to the next. In the past, similar sanctions were slapped on Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece.
|
|
| |
WMA |
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
MP3 |
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
AAC+ |
|
|
48kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
 Historical mascot of
RRI |
2025-04-04
Print
Listen again