Emissions Aristocracy of just 30 companies spews out half of the greenhouse gases covered by the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), representing a quarter of the EU’s carbon footprint, a CMW report uncovers.
Carbon Market Watch presents a unique, first-of-its-kind report pairing EU ETS account holders (and their installations) to their parent companies, assessing the highest level of private ownership possible. This report presents an overview of which companies have the biggest carbon footprint in the EU, who received the most free pollution permits, and which sectors are not delivering on their decarbonisation promises.
Policymakers must break the magnetism between carbon markets and carbon removals by putting in place non-market incentives. This requires a rethinking of the EU’s Carbon Removals Certification Framework process and setting the right targets for 2040.
A recent report by Carbon Market Watch of 20 global, EU, national and sub-national climate policy frameworks shows that not one governs carbon removals in an environmentally sound way.
This policy document outlines recommendations for how the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) EU can help the EU decarbonise its economy by 2040. It was submitted in response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the EU climate target for 2040.
In order to achieve this 2040 goal, the EU needs to raise its ambition now, not after 2030. Even though the ‘Fit for 55’ package of policy measures was only agreed at the end of 2022, it has one fundamental flaw which undermines its ability to deliver on the EU’s climate goals for this decade: it aims for a net decrease in emissions of at least 55% by 2030, at a time when the science clearly shows we need gross cuts of at least 65%. ‘Fit for 55’ needs to become ‘Fit for 65’ as soon as possible. The EU has run up a serious carbon deficit, this urgently requires the wise allocation of our remaining budget.
Following the revamping of the EU’s Emissions Trading System, the associated Innovation Fund also requires an overhaul to ensure it serves the purpose of accelerating decarbonisation. Here are Carbon Market Watch’s and Sandbag’s recommendations.
The steel industry’s strategic importance coupled with its strong lobbying power have combined to shield it from a tightening of the Emissions Trading System. This is harmful to the climate, unfair to taxpayers and hurts the sector’s long-term competitiveness.
The EU must ignore lobbying efforts from industry to certify the storage of carbon dioxide in cement or concrete as carbon removals.
The European Parliament Environment Committee’s rapporteur has preserved most of the defects in her draft report reacting to the European Commission’s proposed Carbon Removal Certification Framework. The draft report, composed by MEP Lídia Pereira of the European People’s Party, contains many small improvements compared with the European Commission’s original proposal for a Carbon Removal Certification …
Preserving nature, restoring soils and safeguarding biodiversity are urgent and necessary activities. However, branding them as carbon removals is harmful. We need other solutions
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