This week: EU Parliament fails to fix carbon market – EU must act

“This makes the ETS irrelevant in Europe’s bid to reduce the use of fossil fuels. The carbon price will continue having no impact on investment decisions in the power sector”, Gruet added.

EWEA backed the plan to delay auctions for additional emissions allowances (“backloading”), because over allocation of allowances, and the economic crisis, led to a significant surplus of free allowances to heavy industry. Combined with a large influx of credits from international projects, the price crashed.

Given the failure of the European Parliament to support an effective carbon price, EWEA urges the EU to urgently negotiate a way forward on backloading and for the European Commission to propose a long-term solution to create an effective carbon market.

Read EWEA’s position paper
Fixing the ETS – an infographic