Tailpipe Trading. How to include road transport in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

This report proposes that the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) should be extended to include tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from road vehicles, indirectly through fuel suppliers, and argues that this would be relatively simple and cheap to administer because of the small number of companies involved.

The authors argue that including road transport in the EU ETS could potentially save about 75-235 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2018-22.

The report also calls for the European Commission to initiate a feasibility study followed by consultation and legislation to include road transport in the EU ETS through fuel suppliers from 2013-17 onwards and that, failing that, the UK Government should consider acting unilaterally.