The final decision to suspend Romania from trading green certificates will be announced on August 29, two days after the reunion of the Kyoto Protocol committee.
Romania’s suspension was proposed on the forum’s latest reunion, on July 6-8 in Bonn. The procedure states that, although the conclusions of the July meeting are preliminary, Romania does not have the right to a new hearing, and it can only make “an official statement”.
The cause for Romania’s imminent suspension is “lack of confidence in Romania’s ability to estimate greenhouse gas emissions on a national level,” the sources said.
The National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2011 was the task of national environment protection agency ANPM.
People within the Environment Ministry told MEDIAFAX that Romania’s suspension will entail the dismissal of ANPM chief Iosif Nagy. The information, however, has not been officially confirmed yet, and a decision by the environment minister should be published within the next several days.
The suspension from green certificate trading means Romania temporarily loses the chance to sell its green certificates.
“At the moment we have some 300 million units for sale, which, at current prices, means some EUR1.8 billion,” said environment minister Laszlo Borbely in a news conference in January this year.
Environment Ministry official Florentina Manea said in April 2011 that Romania is negotiating selling these certificates to companies in countries that have not yet fulfilled their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, such as Japan, Spain, Portugal or Canada.
“These certificates had better be sold by 2012, because we don’t know if they will be carried forward. We hope to conclude a transaction in the near future,” Manea told a news conference at that time.
According to official statistics, Romania currently has an excess of 300 million greenhouse gas emission certificates, evaluated in 2009 at some EUR3 billion. In 2011, the price of certificates declined to EUR5-6, from EUR10 in 2009-2010.
Another element that might impact Romania’s revenue from the certificates is the duration of the suspension.
“There is also the possibility for Romania to be suspended throughout an entire year,” the source said, adding Romania “stands to lose several hundreds of millions of euro”.
Similar suspensions were previously decided against Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia.