EU energy package: a licence to carry on polluting

The Commission has been subjected to a fierce bout of industry lobbying as it looks to replace free emissions permits with an auction system, although this has been subjected to a series of opt outs and will not take full effect until 2020.

“The EU has compromised to corporate lobbyists again” says Tamra Gilbertson of Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the Transnational Institute. “Instead of imposing strict regulations on emissions, it is offering them a lifeline and continuing to offer free pollution permits for at least the next decade.”

Many of the most fundamental criticisms of the ETS have simply not been addressed by the EU’s new proposals.

“Haggling over whether EU emissions trading permits are auctioned or handed out misses the point. These are still ‘permits to pollute’ that companies can use to buy their way out of their responsibility to reduce emissions” explained Kevin Smith, who is also a researcher at Carbon Trade Watch.

“In its first phase, to the end of 2007, the scheme failed to show any emissions cuts at all, while the imaginary ‘costs’ to industry were passed onto consumers anyway." says Smith. “As these old loopholes are closed, new ones are being opened up. The ETS now allows businesses to buy additional credits from developing countries outside the scheme, which allow them to keep polluting at the same rate.”

Further details
Kevin Smith, kevin@carbontradewatch.org, +44 207 700 7971 (UK office)
Oscar Reyes, oscar@tni.org, +31 20 662 66 08 (NL office) / +31 647 035778 (mobile)