Programme meant to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to cost Romania 6.1 billion euros till 2015Updated: 08-12-2009 | Politics

The cost Romania will have to bear in order to be in keeping with the pledges it made to the European Union as regards reducing the carbon dioxide emissions is 6.1 billion euros till 2015 and 12.5 billion euros till 2020, reads a report drawn up by the Romanian Centre for European Policies (CRPE).

According to the above-mentioned source, the contribution mainly consists of increasing the renewable energy levels and energy efficiency projects in residential buildings, industry and transports.

"The total value of the funds the EU has available for energy is about 700 million euros, whereas the necessary investments in the electric energy production would be up to 35 billion euros in the next ten years, merely for bringing thermal energy generation to the international standards of efficiency and emission," reads the report mentioned before.

As for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions the study remarks the pledge taken by Romania in keeping with the Kyoto Protocol by which we are duty bound to decrease the quantity by 8 percent till 2012 as against the one in 1989. In other words Romania is allowed to produce 1,279 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2008 and 2012.

Romania, which rules Europe together with Germany and Poland in point of the small quantity of carbon dioxide, benefits by "pollution rights," which are called assigned amount units (AAU).

At present Romania has the right to have about 350 million AAU, which can be sold to other countries (Japan, West European states).

"I the past few years Romania's Government has been unresolved as regards the two options. Now the Government faces a difficult choice: to sell AAU at a low price in the months to come (after the necessary legislation is adopted) or to risk losing them entirely if a new post-Kyoto international agreement does not allow AAU to be transferred after 2012," reads the CRPE report.

Currently, because of these hesitations, but also because of the drop in prices on the market, the Romanian authorities hope to get about 8-10 euros per tonne.

Agerpres