While the emissions trading program in the European Union has grown by 11 percent this year, there are signs that may be changing, as December 2008 CO₂ recently fell 2.7 percent. There are signs that power companies plan to change from coal to a cleaner-burning natural gas. Coal plants require twice as many permits as natural gas burning facilities.

A power supplier in Britain found that its margin was about $16 per megawatt hour burning natural gas compared to about $11 using coal.

United Nations-approved credits and E.U. permits can be banked starting in the second five-year phase. Traders can then take such banked credits into the third phase, which would begin in 2013. This could have an effect on prices in the second and third phases, according to European economists.