Abstract (EN)

At the stage of international post-Kyoto negotiations, the adoption of ambitious public policies raises an increasing interest, as society has a whole is more concerned by the scale of damages and the potential irreversibility linked to climate change. The introduction of a tradable permits market in Europe on January 1, 2005, in order to provide incentives to Member-States to take early abatement measures, may be seen as a decisive first step towards that direction. The creation of the EU ETS has indeed revealed the key role played by the European Union in the preservation of the global public good that constitutes the climate. This article reviews the market rules of the European carbon market during 2005-2007. More particularly, it synthesizes theoretical and empirical analyses of banking and borrowing provisions, price drivers and risk-hedging strategies attached to tradable quotas, which were introduced to cover the CO2 emissions of around 10,600 installations in Europe.