European Climate Change Policy assessed, with Particular Focus on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme?Evolution and Key Features to 2020 (UCD)

In this paper, we have surveyed the effects of European climate change policy on European economies and societies, and analyzed them empirically. The paper consists of four parts. Namely, 1) a survey of ex-ante studies and ex-post literatures on the cost assessments of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), 2) a research work on subjects and prospects of development, commercialization and diffusion of the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), 3) Irish case study on transaction costs of firms in the EU-ETS, and 4) Irish case study on response by firms in the EU-ETS. As a conclusion, this paper proposed appropriate environmental policy process for Japan based on the studies' results.