The plan contemplates a cut in the ‘rights to pollute’ assigned to the industry while taxing imports
The Council and the European Parliament reached at dawn yesterday, after thirty hours of marathon negotiations, a key agreement to reduce CO2 emissions and address their social impact. The plan seeks to accelerate the pace on this goal, phasing out free ‘polluting rights’ allocated to industry, while establishing a ‘carbon border tax’, which imposes environmental standards on imports. It also plans to charge for emissions linked to heating buildings and road transport, with a price cap to avoid taxing households.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) allows electricity producers and energy-intensive industries like steel and cement to cover their emissions with quotas. These quotas are designed to decrease over time to cut emissions and invest in green technologies.
“The Most Ambitious”
The agreement reached implies that the affected sectors must reduce emissions by 62% by 2030 with respect to 2005 levels. The pact also seeks to accelerate the calendar for a progressive elimination of the system of rights to pollute, with a reduction of 48 .5% by 2030 and a total suspension by 2034, a program that was at the center of discussions between parliamentarians and Member States.
The carbon market will be progressively applied to the maritime sector, to flights within the European block and to garbage incineration sites in 2028, depending on a favorable report from the Commission.
French MEP Pascal Canfin, who chairs the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, stated that the price of carbon for industries affected by the ETS will be set at 100 euros per tonne. “No other continent has such an ambitious price for carbon,” he said on Twitter.
The most controversial point in the negotiation was the commission’s proposal to create a second carbon market called (ETS2) for building heating and road fuels, in which fuel suppliers will buy allowances to cover their emissions.
Initially, MEPs reacted with alarm at the social impact of this measure and sought that the plan be applied first to offices and trucks. Finally, households will also have to pay for the carbon used for fuel and heating from 2027, but this price will be capped at €45 per tonne until 2030 and if the rise in energy prices continues, the application it will be postponed until 2028.
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