Brussels 24 February. Today the European Parliament’s environment committee took the first steps to reform the EU’s Emissions Trading System. Following intense pressure from forward looking investors and civil society, policymakers agreed to curb the total amount of pollution permits in the system that would otherwise flood the market by 2020. This is expected to result in a stronger carbon price signal in order to let the polluter pay and support climate friendly investments in Europe. Policymakers unfortunately failed to agree to a timely start of the new Market Stability Reserve which will only become operational by 2019.
On Tuesday 24 February, Members of the European Parliament will cast a crucial vote on the future of Europe’s flagship climate instrument, the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Failure to reform Europe’s carbon market could sink the emerging network of global carbon trading systems and have profound consequences for the success of the international climate summit in Paris at the end of this year.
This month, South Korea became the second Asian country after Kazakhstan to officially start a national carbon market. The first carbon allowances that were traded on the Korea Exchange were sold at a similar price to that in Europe’s emissions trading system (EU ETS). South Korea’s ETS could therefore be a good candidate for linking with EU’s carbon market now that the EU is looking at linking as replacement for the barred use of international offsets. While linking can have significant consequences for the integrity of the EU ETS, the European Parliament is currently not in a position to scrutinize the linking negotiation process.
During the night of 23 October 2014, EU leaders brokered a deal on the 2030 climate and energy headline targets. EU’s Heads of States settled on an EU-binding renewable energy target of at least 27%, an indicative energy efficiency target of at least 27% and an at least 40% binding domestic greenhouse gas reduction target …
Read more “Analysis of Europe’s 2030 Climate Ambition”
Scroll down for French and German Brussels, 20 October. This week EU Heads of State are expected to agree on new headline targets for the EU’s 2030 climate and energy framework, including a target to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 within the EU’s territory. Flexibility options to make …
Read more “Media advisory: Integrity of Europe’s 2030 climate target in limbo over choice of flexibility options”
The latest leak of the 2030 Council Conclusions (dated 16 October 2014) provides further reason to worry about the future integrity of our 2030 climate target. As explained in our previous reaction from 2 September (see here), due to technical loopholes in the current climate framework, 4 billion tonnes of hot air will accumulate which …
Read more “Carbon Market Watch reaction to the leaked 2030 Council Conclusions”
On 23 and 24 October 2014, EU’s Heads of State will determine Europe’s future action to avoid dangerous global temperature rise. It is expected that they will propose to reduce Europe’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions by merely 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. While this target is not nearly enough to combat climate change, some governments …
Read more “Europe’s leaders must protect the 2030 climate target from loopholes”
For the last couple of years, the European carbon market has failed to provide a signal for decarbonisation with carbon prices hovering around 5 euros for a tonne of CO2. To address this, earlier this year, the European Commission proposed to reform the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) in order to provide a more …
Read more “EU carbon market reforms must go further and arrive sooner”
While Europe is trying to get its emissions trading system (ETS) out of the doldrums, China is busily preparing to launch its national carbon market. By 2020, China’s carbon market will have surpassed the EU ETS as the world’s largest carbon market, covering around 3 to 4 billion tonnes of CO2. South Korea, which in …
Read more “Capping the Dragon: prospects for Chinese and European emissions trading linkage”
