EU Commission’s climate plan two steps forward, one step back

BRUSSELS 17 September 2020. The European Commission’s 2030 Climate Target Plan reiterates positive elements from the European Green Deal such as strengthening the EU carbon market and reducing free pollution permits to airlines. But the plan to rely on carbon sinks to reach the target waters down the overall ambitious plan and needs to be …

Carbon Market Watch’s feedback on the inception impact assessment on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

Carbon Market Watch fully supports efforts to price GHG emissions, within and outside the EU.  The EU ETS has been successful for certain sectors, but has failed to incentivise large scale decarbonisation of European industry, in part because of its excessive measures to guard against the hypothetical risk of carbon leakage. Industrial companies have gained …

Carbon Border Adjustments: Climate Protection or Climate Protectionism?

Pricing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most important tools to decarbonise economies, and it has been implemented in the EU since 2005 through the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). As part of this policy, the heavy industry benefits from large exemptions and receives nearly all of its allowances (i.e. pollution permits) for free. …

Carbon Market Watch Newsletter – October 2019

Stronger climate action should be the main goal of an EU carbon border tax Dear friends, Tomorrow was supposed to start the count-down to the much-touted “European Green Deal”. The rejection of three Commissioner-candidates by the Europen Parliament means that Ursula von der Leyen’s team is not able to start their work at least before December, but …