Wybrane instrumenty polityki ekologicznej Unii Europejskiej w sektorze elektroenergetycznym

Abstract

The Europeans can enjoy the environment. The soundings of Eurobarometr show, that the majority (over 70%) of them wish, the decision makers treat with the same attention the question of environment, economic and social politics. For recent 30 years much has been done to improve the environment in Europe, however the main problems still exist. To the most important of them belong the climate changes, which cause unusually waether occurrences, regional water deficit and melting of polar glaciers. This negativ impact on the environment is caused by the emission on greenhous gases, which are released during the combustion processes of solid fuels. The source of the third part of the world emission of greenhous gases is the energetics, because of that the main activities are undertaken in this sector to reduce the size of this occurrence. EU has become the leader in determining of the ambitious purposes to reduce the emission of greenhous gases. It has accepted that no activity means too high risk. Therefore the EU has created and initiated the European Union Emissions Trading System, which should enable to reduce the emission of greenhous gases of 8 percent until 2012 in relation to 1990 in EU-countries. This target has been established over the Kyoto Protocol level. The European Union Emissions Trading System runs parallel to the liberalization process of the European electricity market. The aritcle presents the mutual relationships, which appear between the emission of greenhous gases and the electricity generation sector of EU. The combustion of solid fuels causes the pollution of environment but its protection expressed in necessity to possess some emission allowances leads to higher prices of electricity. A new type of cost will increase the price of electricity produced in power plants polluting the environment with CO2. It will stimulate the competition between different technologies of electricity production and development of environmental friendly energy sources.