L'allocation initiale des quotas d'émission de C02 aux entreprises à la lumière de l'analyse économique

The final draft of the European directive on C02 emissions trading has been decided on by the Council on July 23, 2003. It is now up to governments to put the instrument into place by January 2005. It is also the right time to consider the issue of initial allocation of C02 allowances from the viewpoint of economic efficiency and equity regarding business firms. The paper first recalls how the instrument is running and underlines why the choice of a specific rule of allocation is to have no significant impact on the current running of competitive markets for allowances and products, but a significant one on the capability of firms to ensure the financing of their future development. From the examination of several issues linked to initial allocation, the paper identifies three main threats for the economic efficiency of emissions trading : the administration willing to take back unused allowances when managers decide to close-down a facility ; a bad choice of allocation criteria making possible a counter-productive interference with firms abatement programs, which would be strategically framed in order to influence the future allocation of allowances in a multi-period procedure of allocation ; giving allowances for free to new entrants on the basis of a superficial understanding of the requirements of a fair competition. Also, to define the initial allocation on the basis of previous voluntary commitments of firms and to allocate extra quotas for past voluntary actions would be quite an arbitrary procedure and violate basic requirements of equity.