The U.K. is set to start its own carbon market with the aim of putting a price on polluting that it hopes will help achieve the country’s ambitious climate goals.
The first auction of emission permits this Wednesday is the latest test of how the country copes with the separation from the European Union, its largest trading partner.
Until January, Britain was part of the EU’s emissions trading system, the world’s largest cap-and-trade program and the centerpiece of the bloc’s efforts to limit climate change. By going it alone, the U.K. is forgoing a 16-year-old market that helped cut EU emissions by almost a quarter in the past two decades.