Two key elements to get right in the EU carbon market review The upcoming revision of the EU carbon market rules is an opportunity to ensure that industries covered by it cut their pollution in line with the EU Green Deal objectives and the Paris Climate Agreement. Agreeing on a faster pace at which emissions…
Carbon market stakeholders are slowly moving beyond the zero-sum game of offsetting towards alternative ways of financing climate action. This positive development will make the existing market more robust, helping to shield it from reputational risks and environmental integrity scandals. Offsetting – paying someone else to reduce emissions instead of reducing one’s own – has…
A reminder of the tricky issues of agreement on global carbon market rules in the context of ratcheting up climate ambition Raising ambition is the primordial task for governments ahead of and at the next UN climate conference. But it will also be essential to finally agree on the rules that will govern global carbon…
Relying on paying someone else to reduce emissions is risky and unsustainable. Therefore, private companies should stop “offsetting” and instead financially help poorer countries reach their climate targets and foster sustainable development. Voluntary carbon markets are booming as businesses across the world make climate-neutrality pledges. These plans often rely on the purchase of credits from…
Guest article by Kirsten Sleven, Director, WISE As the first country in the world, the Netherlands is about to introduce a carbon tax on industrial pollution. The tax is part of a broader policy package (Dutch Climate Agreement) to stimulate major industrial polluters to ‘decarbonize’ their production processes and was drawn up in consultation with…
It’s been dubbed a first of its kind – a new offset deal between Switzerland and Peru under the Paris Agreement. But how ground-breaking is this deal? And has there been any real change from the old offset efforts under the Kyoto Protocol of the past? Because of the postponement of COP26 in Glasgow, rules…
While the EU carbon market is helping to clean up Europe’s power sector, industrial CO2 pollution remained stubbornly high, and that from aviation kept growing in 2019. This is partly due to overly generous handouts of pollution permits. These subsidies must be phased out to incentivise cleaner production and more sustainable transport as the scheme…
A carbon border adjustment measure can support a clean industrial transition globally if it’s designed properly and fairly. It must replace all current EU pollution handouts and its revenues must be used wisely to drive innovation and to provide climate finance to countries that most need it. The EU Commission is preparing the law to…
The final EU carbon market state aid rules will ensure massive handouts of taxpayer money to large polluting industries such as oil refineries and plastic producers over the next decade. The EU ETS state aid guidelines for 2021-2030 set the framework for EU countries to compensate their electricity-intensive industries deemed at risk of ‘carbon leakage’…
We joined the World Press Clubs Alliance for Climate launch event on Friday 23 October. Watch the interview with Sabine Frank here. Companies and governments are announcing “climate-neutrality” targets, and consumers are being offered ways to offset their carbon footprint. What does this mean in practice? How can we distinguish between real climate action and…
Kaisa Amaral, Communications Director
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