Sofia commodity exchange starts greenhouse gas trade next year.

Sofia commodity exchange starts greenhouse gas trade next year. The local commodity exchange is preparing to launch greenhouse gas trade as of the beginning of next year in line with the EU schemes for implementation of the Kyoto protocol. The ministry of environment will maintain a national register of CO 2 quotas that will support the gas trade. The country’s overall ceiling of CO 2 is set at 125mn tonnes until end-2007 and a big part of it is allocated to the transport sector. As far as current emissions are well below this level, the government could also offer for sale gas quotas or accumulate them as a reserve for the next reference period of quota distributions from 2008 to 2012. Following the line EU directive, local authorities have also distributed quotas for around 50mn tonnes of CO 2 to around 150 firms and some of them could be offered for sale next year. Over the new reference period, Bulgaria will have the obligation to cut greenhouse emissions 8% below the level from the base year 1988 set under the Kyoto protocol. Due to the rapid decline of the heavy industry from the communist era as well as ongoing shifts to environment friendly technologies, harmful emissions will be much below the set target and the government will be able to sale significant amounts of non-utilised CO 2 quotas, which are traded slightly below EUR 10 per tonne at present but the price has reached EUR 30 a few months ago. The local commodity exchange will separately consider options for launching trade with CO 2 futures in medium terms.