LONDON — European Union lawmakers moved on Thursday to support the bloc’s system for trading carbon-emission permits, hoping to revive Europe’s flagging effort to take a market-incentives approach to reducing greenhouse gases.

The officials voted 306 to 276 to quickly put into effect a plan to stimulate the trading system by reducing the number of carbon allowances either sold in auctions or given to big carbon polluters.

Europe’s market for trading carbon permits is by far the world’s most ambitious effort of its type. The permits essentially give holders the right to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide from industrial smokestacks. But prices for the permits have been so low that they give industries little incentive to stop burning coal and switch to cleaner forms of energy.

The aim of the new move is to reduce the glut of carbon credits that have been depressing prices on the market known as the Emissions Trading System, or E.T.S. If prices rise, the theory goes, then polluters will have more incentive to adopt cleaner energy alternatives.