On 18 April 2023, Sandbag presented to the European Commission’s Expert Group on Climate Change Policy a proposal for reforming the granting of free emission permits to industry under the bloc’s carbon market. Our proposal aims to incentivise the switch to lower...
Category: EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)
Lost opportunity of carbon market reform leaves a lot to fix in ancillary laws
On 13 December 2022, the European Commission, Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that will partly replace the free allocation of emissions permits to polluters covered by its carbon market. This marks the...
What’s new in the ETS trilogues? Benchmark revisions (or not!)
This weekend, the European Commission, Parliament, and Council are set to finalise an important reform of the EU’s carbon market in the final round of their “trilogue” (trilogues are informal tripartite meetings on legislative proposals between representatives of the...
An Export Solution for a Faster CBAM Phase-in
A Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has been proposed by the European Commission as an alternative to the measures under the EU ETS that currently address the risk of carbon-intensive industries relocating to countries with no carbon pricing (carbon leakage),...
Our concerns regarding ETS and CBAM legislative texts
We have strong concerns regarding the legislative texts on the revision of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), presented by the European Commission, Council and Parliament. All three bodies have proposed to extend the...
2nd ETS trilogue: EU institutions agreed on almost nothing, except on perpetuating free allocation for the steel giants
The second ETS trilogue took place last week on October 11th. Tabled proposals on benchmarks regarding the steel…
European Scrap Steel Floats Away Under Carbon Market Incentives
According to Shipbreaking Platform, a Brussels-based NGO campaigning for the environmental and human rights issues linked to shipbreaking practices, in 2021 alone, 583 ocean-going commercial ships and floating offshore units with a total of 14 million gross...
RePowerEU financing plan shows how market makes decarbonisation harder
Read Sandbag’s feedback to RePowerEU on the European Commission’s website. We welcome immediate action to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian fossil fuels in the face of its aggression against Ukraine. However, the European Commission’s proposal reflects the...
RePowerEU: Fiddling with the Carbon Market puts the Climate at Risk
[See new analysis with EC, EP and Council proposals] The European Commission’s plan to raise revenues from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) increases the risk to exceed the market’s emission limit. On May 18th the European Commission announced a plan to use Europe’s...
Letter to members of the European Parliament Environment (ENVI) committee
The negotiations on key climate files of the Fit For 55 package which was launched by the European Commission in July 2021, are approaching critical moments. On 16-17 May, the Environment (ENVI) committee of the European Parliament will vote on the reports for the EU...