Carbon Market Watch would like to draw attention to the following shortcomings of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED):

-The environmental impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not addressed by the IED, which is a major gap in the Directive aiming to prevent and control pollution arising from industrial activities. Article 9(1) of the IED states that all permits for installations covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) should not set an  emission limit for GHG emissions ‘unless significant local pollution is caused’

– In particular in resource and energy-intensive industrial (non-power) sectors we are concerned that GHG emissions have not decreased since 2012 despite the existence of the EU ETS. The European Environment Agency predicts that sectors like steel, cement and chemicals will not reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at all at least until 2030.

– This situation is ineffective and counter-productive to climate action and resource efficiency. Significant  improvements could be achieved through mandatory energy efficiency requirements and GHG performance standards for the main emitters, in particular for resource and energy-intensive industry installations.