Netherlands Ministry of the Environment and Automated Credit Exchange Conduct First-Ever, Rate-Based NOx Emission Trading Simulation.
Business Editors
MAASTRICHT, Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 14, 2001
More Than 125 Participants From the Netherlands and Belgium Take Part
in Exercise to Simulate New Rate-Based Emission Trading Program
Designed to Allow for Economic and Energy Growth
More than 125 participants from the Netherlands and Belgium, including more than 30 Dutch and Belgian companies, have successfully completed the first electronic simulation of a novel, rate-based emission trading program for nitrogen oxide (NOx) reductions.
The Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) and the Automated Credit Exchange(TM) (ACE) developed and conducted the simulation exercise. KPMG Netherlands organized and facilitated the event.
The first-ever simulation took place Feb. 6 and 7 in Maastricht at the site where the European Union signed its historic treaty. Fittingly, the simulation participants included industry and government representatives from the Netherlands and Belgium. Norway was also represented. The exercise allowed participants to experience how a proposed Netherlands rate-based emission-trading program would assist them to cost-effectively reduce NOx emissions.
"Our successful simulation was a first -- bringing together expertise from the Netherlands and California to place our regulatory program into working form -- electronically. It's the next step in developing our NOx emission trading program," said Chris Dekkers, senior policy advisor of the Climate Change and Industry Directorate of VROM.
"Working in a partnership with industry, we have established a strong framework for this new program. The simulation allowed those who will be subject to the program to see how it functions, to learn more about its design, and give us their informed comments. We are also very satisfied that our colleagues from the Belgian Ministry of Environment (Aminal) and representatives from the Belgian industry joined us in our experiment," Dekkers added.
"This simulated trading gave us an excellent, hands-on understanding of how emission trading works," noted Henk van Wouw, Shell Netherlands manager of environmental affairs and chairman of the industry working group which has been cooperatively developing this program with the VROM.
