Press releases
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ENVI and ITRE are rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic with their ETS revision
The Emissions Trading System reform is in Committee Stage, and a dark comedy has begun. Many of the measures proposed in the Environment (ENVI) committee draft (by Ian Duncan MEP) ironically act against the environment, condemning the EU to an inadequate response to...
The Effort Sharing Dinosaur: Avoiding extinction for the EU’s climate ambition
Today, Thursday 26 May Sandbag has released a new report on the cumulative surplus of Annual Emission Allocations (AEAs) under the Effort Sharing Decision (ESD) – the EU’s bigger, but less well-known climate instrument, alongside the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)....
A wake-up call for European emissions targets
In a recent communication responding to the Paris Climate agreement, the European Commission made clear that it does not intend to increase the level of its climate ambition until after 2030. This ignores the clear mandate the Paris Climate agreement provided to...
Bored to tiers: Reforming carbon leakage
This week, Sandbag presented its ‘tiering’ proposal to the Environment Committee shadow rapporteurs meeting on reforming the Emission Trading Scheme. The proposal recommends a way to improve ‘carbon leakage’ protections, with a nifty boost for ambition at the same...
Is it worth it? Federley’s proposal on the Innovation Fund
Update 04/05/16 following full publication of Mr Federley’s proposal The 150 million ETS allowances proposed to be used to top up the Innovation Fund are not destined to be removed the Market Stability Reserve (MSR), as reported in the media (see below). Apologies for...
EU must walk the talk on climate ambition and Paris
Tomorrow the European Union, alongside over 150 states, will sign the Paris agreement at a ceremony in New York. But can we really live up to the promise of keeping the world below 1.5 degrees warming with the current low level of ambition in the European 2030 climate...
Cut the flab: Cement sector’s free lunch is costing other companies
Sandbag’s recent report on the cement sector highlighted several key flaws in Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) rules around free allocation of allowances. These rules give rise to perverse incentives to pollute: we estimate the ETS has increased cement sector emissions,...
DATA: Preliminary data shows further fall in ETS emissions
Today preliminary data released on the 12,194 installations in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) show 2015 emissions fell again. Stationary emissions were 1802Mt in 2015 (i.e. excluding aviation), down by 0.6% from 1813Mt in 2014. This is exactly as Sandbag...