or longer if the dispute goes to court -- to know what their CO2 allowances are. A court case could take 2 years or more. The row between Britain and the Commission comes as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair attempts to put climate change at the heart of Britain's forthcoming EU presidency this year. But Beckett insisted the UK government was right. "We believe we have a good legal case for having those (revised) proposals accepted," she said. The emissions trading scheme is at the heart of Europe's plans to meet its commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which came into force only a few weeks ago. The revised UK scheme allows industry to emit about 20 million tonnes more carbon dioxide or CO2 than the original plan, granting firms a total of 756 million allowances. The EU scheme officially began in January. Four EU states still do not have not had their national allocation plans approved. Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said the remaining plans from Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece would likely be voted on by Commission members this month. "I'm sure that we can move very quickly to approve the Italian plan," she said, adding the executive was still checking whether it had all the necessary information for the Czech plan.
