The withdrawal, in a letter from Croatia's environment ministry on August 4, means the Balkan state accepts the U.N's ruling over its greenhouse gas limit from 2008-2012, its dispute of which has banned Croatia from trading U.N-backed carbon units since November 2009.
The ban will remain until the matter is formally addressed at a year-end U.N. climate summit in Durban, South Africa, according to a note posted on the UNFCCC website on Thursday.
Croatia needed to get the ban lifted to enable its biggest emitting companies to join the EU ETS in 2013, when the government intends to become an EU member state.
The country must toughen emission reduction efforts if it joins the EU, as the 27 member state bloc targets 20 percent reduction by 2020 under 1990 levels, while Croatia's pledges a 5 percent reduction, according to UN documents.
Based on information from Croatian think tanks and green groups, the 81 installations that would be covered under the cap-and-trade system emit around 10-12 million tonnes of CO2 a year, around 0.6 percent of the entire cap. Read the full report here.
Source: Ben Garside, Planet Ark, Britain.
