Analysis of the European Climate Change Policy in respect to the Housing Sector

With the emission trading of greenhouse gases a new policy instrument was introduced by the Kyoto Protocol. This instrument was implemented first in the EU and can be seen as a pilot project for a global emission trading system. The Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) will be described in chapter 5. Some basic experiences of the first phase which ends with the beginning of the second phase in 2008 shall also be summarized. Since the building sector is not yet included in the trading scheme, this thesis also takes a closer look at the possible implementation of the scheme to the building sector. To estimate what kind of measures the ETS shall stimulate the current technological and structural approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the housing sector are explained. This thesis is no attempt to describe the international discussion on climate change or the structure of EU policy. It aims at putting the European Emission Trading Scheme in a policy context and at showing other attempts of the EU policies to face climate change. The chapter on the implementation of the Emission Trading Scheme to the housing sector is an attempt to show the possibilities of further actions. It is not based on broad studies but should be seen as a theoretical approach to start a discussion. The thesis is mainly based on EU directives and policy documents, as well as studies of the EEA. To get a broader spectrum of data the CAIT of the World Research institute was used in the description of the European emission structure. The CAIT is a public environmental database with global data