I'll say right away that what follows is not very interesting. Perhaps only in terms of how a debate flared up that will be wholly without results. The ETS, or Europe's Emissions Trading System, will be changed, but not fundamentally. Recent squabbling around the ETS is pure busywork.

The world is quite a complex place. No one can delve deeply into everything. Fortunately, they don't have to, while it can be difficult to decide what is truly important and what is not. An inevitability of the information age.

Nearly half a billion people live across 27 countries in the European Union and it is equally inevitable that many internal agreements are rather technical. There are many such agreements. This means that if someone wants to pick a fight, it is always possible to do so by selecting a random string of letters roulette-style and seeing which agreement turns up; some kind of conflict can always be built around it since few people are able to argue strongly against it. In this case, ETS.

Pollution and emissions are a hidden cost to society that generally persists unless regulations steer innovation toward less-polluting solutions. If two products sit side by side in a store, one with the cost of pollution factored into the price and the other without it, the consumer's hand tends to reach for the latter.

Fortunately, in Europe — indeed even in China — we have come to understand that we ultimately pay the cost of pollution when dealing with its consequences, for example through healthcare expenses. It is therefore more sensible, and also cheaper, to limit pollution rather than deal only with its aftermath.

Modern Europe is significantly cleaner than Europe in the 1960s or 1970s, cleaner even than pre-ETS Europe in 2004. This change did not happen on its own. The ETS is, of course, not the only tool against pollution, but it is highly effective because it has driven the adoption of new technologies.

By now, renewable energy and energy storage have become mainstream in the energy sector rather than emerging technologies. Together with nuclear energy, they are forming an energy portfolio that is clean and provides consumers with competitive and stable prices. So what exactly are we talking about?

ETS to be reformed, not torn down

A serious debate is underway in the European Union about competitiveness. It is a necessary discussion, both now and going forward, because the same conversation is taking place everywhere in the world. There is no such thing as a problem-free society or economic system and at least some of those problems can be solved. Competition drives progress and no one wants to be left behind. The most competitive economic bloc will write the rules of the next rules-based world order.

But there is a very, very long step from that discussion to finding a scapegoat to beat up on — such as the ETS. The system is far from being the root of all evil. At most, in Estonia, the ETS is a single pinecone surrounded by a dense forest of many other issues.

In short, modern society does not tend to function in a way where there is One Big Problem somewhere. Simple solutions ("let's abolish the ETS!") may be not only ineffective but also carry very serious consequences.

That does not mean the ETS is perfect or cannot be improved. As I said, I do not know of a single ideal system, agreement or society. The main shortcoming of the current ETS is the volatility and unpredictability of the quota price.

Investments in the economy that are based on or supported by the ETS are generally sustainable, but even these sustainable investments must be weighed against all other investments because not everything can be done at once. If the ETS price is unpredictable, investment decisions may be postponed — or worse, the wrong decisions may be made.

So, two facts about the ETS:

• There is an ongoing discussion about reforming the ETS, primarily to improve price predictability and stability.
• The ETS will not be abolished or dismantled.

I can say the latter with great confidence because, unlike most critics, I sit at the tables where these decisions are made. In Europe, there is no serious political force that wants to dismantle the ETS.

For those who do not happen to believe me — after all, it's politics, where some think everyone can be painted with the same brush — you can listen to Jüri Ratas who told ERR a few weeks ago: "According to my information, there are actually no countries that would say the ETS should be ended and the goals crossed out." Jüri Ratas is right.

Local thrashing will bring us neither allies nor results

At least as absurd are the voices claiming that Estonia should unilaterally withdraw from the ETS. One might just as well argue that since collecting used motor oil is expensive, we should simply pour it directly into the Gulf of Finland instead.

Estonia's electricity system is part of the broader European network. It is not a serious proposition that we would simply pull the plug on our connections and stop exporting and importing electricity altogether.

Not to mention that the ETS has only a partial connection to Estonia's oil shale energy sector (oil shale electricity accounted for about one-sixth of total electricity consumption last year). Most oil shale is not burned for power, but used to produce shale oil and shale oil production receives free ETS allowances.

If we were to leave the ETS, we would no longer export our shale oil and, consequently, would not produce it — making the cost of oil shale electricity many times higher. We would effectively switch off the lights on our own oil shale energy sector.

Oil shale electricity is not the future for other reasons as well — for example, building an oil shale power plant costs about five times as much as building a gas-fired plant of the same capacity. Or the fact that Estonia's oil shale resources are located in Ida-Viru County, while it is more practical to distribute power plants across the country.

Of course, excessive dependence on imported gas is not desirable either. We can see this in Italy where about 40 percent of electricity is generated from gas and where prices rose in March as a result, while in Estonia they fell significantly (around €140 per megawatt-hour in Italy versus about €61 per megawatt-hour in Estonia).

Gas-fired plants fit well into Estonia's electricity mix, but as peak-load balancers and backup capacity rather than for 24/7 generation. They are reliable, relatively inexpensive to build (about five times cheaper than oil shale plants of the same capacity) and can be ramped up and down quickly. Oil shale plants, by contrast, are already old or so unreliable that, figuratively speaking, gas plants would need to be built alongside them as backup anyway.

I will not go into the technical details of the ETS here, including why its formula results in Estonia receiving many times more money back from the system than it contributes.

But the good news is that two-thirds of last year's electricity production came from renewable energy. And renewable energy is unaffected by how high the ETS price is.

The ETS will not be dismantled because doing so would not be sensible and is not supported by any serious voice in Europe. Building expectations to the contrary is therefore misleading to voters. It means voters can only end up disappointed that something was not done that would, in fact, have been harmful. Meanwhile, ETS prices will become more stable and will continue to support Europe's competitiveness by encouraging investment in clean technologies and innovation.

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