Options for a 2020 EU Burden Sharing Agreement

Within the European Union the Member States face the problem of finding target sharing agreements for different binding and quantified commitments for the total emission reduction commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for the caps within the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and regarding the expansion of energy supply from renewable energy sources. The three targets are interlinked and the process for the target sharing agreement follows not in all dimensions the same timing. The paper outlines the different approaches which could constitute the basis for the upcoming debates. The analysis presented in this paper is geared to identifying starting points, general principles and key findings for the debate.