UK's unclear post-Brexit emissions strategy

The shape of future EU carbon trading hangs in the balance

For the last 13 years, the UK has been one of the main drivers of European climate policy. A staunch proponent of market-based solutions to climate change problems, the country was the first in Europe to trial carbon trading in 2002, providing valuable lessons for the EU's own Emissions Trading System (ETS) that began in 2005. Now, however, Britain's continued participation in the world's largest carbon market is in question. It is still unclear whether UK industry will even remain part of the market through to the end of the current trading phase, which ends in December 2020, eighteen months after the UK officially leaves the EU. Beyond Brexit, there is also the question of how the UK would