COP19 (17/11/13) – Dirk Forrister, President and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association explains what the emissions trading scheme (ETS) is and how it can help reduce emissions and unlock ambition.

ETS is an incentive based policy that is designed to limit emissions across its sources and gradually reduce them over time. The incentive part of this scheme is that you reduce beyond the amount that you have to you can gain credits. These credits can be sold and help pay for the technology that brought down the emissions.

This has been successful in Europe and is being picked up by different governments across the world. He says that in the United States ETS has been successful because it has the economic efficiency and environmental performance that bridged the partisan differences between political parties.