Time to comply with emissions-trading systems

Emissions-trading systems are here to stay. Oil and gas firms need to start budgeting for them

One of the clearest signals to emerge from the Paris climate summit in December was international support for carbon markets as a key weapon in the fight against climate change. But instead of a single, global market, industries like the energy sector face a growing number of national and regional systems. In agreeing a global target of net carbon neutrality in the second half of the century, the countries that agreed the deal explicitly signalled that large-scale burning of liquid and solid fuels will have to end. But rather than regulate the fossil-fuel business out of existence, these countries seem willing to provide it with a path towards net-zero carbon through the use of emissions-tra