CBAM: Exploring MEP Chahim’s draft report

MEP Mohammed Chahim, the rapporteur of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) Regulation in the Environment Committee at the European Parliament, is in charge of drafting a report that includes proposed changes to the European Commission legislative proposal. The draft report was published in December 2021 and will be used to inform and influence the …

Top corporations use misleading climate pledges to greenwash image, new report

Major global companies are avoiding meaningful climate action and are instead using false, misleading or ambiguous green claims, a new report shows. The first Climate Corporate Responsibility Monitor assesses the pledges made by 25 of the world’s largest corporations, many of them household names, against a set of transparent quantitative and qualitative indicators. Due out …

January newsletter editorial: Europe’s sustainable energy quandary

Dear friends, Shortly before a dinner guest around our New Year’s Eve table asked me whether it will really be possible to satisfy all our future energy needs with electricity from renewable sources, the European Commission slipped through its controversial proposal for what constitutes green investment.  In the Commission’s draft addition to the green taxonomy, …

How to make the EU’s carbon border tax effective and fair

As the EU steps up its efforts to introduce a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, it is crucial that policymakers design the CBAM to support deep emission reductions while safeguarding the right of less-privileged countries to develop, writes CMW policy officer Agnese Ruggiero. French President Emmanuel Macron aims to prioritise the completion of the Carbon Border …

European Parliament’s proposed carbon market revamp a licence for industry to pollute

The European Parliament’s draft report by MEP Peter Liese on revising the EU’s Emissions Trading System fails to strengthen the scheme’s climate targets while opening up multiple routes to hand out more free emission allowances and offer offsets, enabling heavy industries to profit from their pollution. German Christian Democrat MEP Peter Liese has released his …

A sustainable carbons cycle or a vicious emissions cycle?

Despite some good elements, the European Commission’s proposed carbon removal strategy leaves the door wide open to offsetting after 2030, which will undermine its ability to reduce emissions, writes Wijnand Stoefs. On 15 December 2021, the European Commission published its Sustainable Carbon Cycles Communication, which showcases its vision for carbon farming, industrial carbon capture and …

EU must stop subsidising polluters with hundreds of billions in free emissions allowances, green groups demand

Even though the European Union’s Emissions Trading System has already issued over €200 billions in free emissions permits, the European Commission is proposing hundreds of billions of euros of additional free allowances for polluting industries. Europe must scrap these pollution subsidies and make polluters pay the true price of their pollution, environmental NGOs urge EU …

Unsustainable business cycles trump sustainable carbon cycles in EU’s CO2 removals strategy

The European Commission released today its much-anticipated Sustainable Carbon Cycles Communication. The strategy undermines its own goals of reducing atmospheric carbon concentration by allowing companies to use removals to offset their emissions in the future. The strategy sets out a blueprint for how the European Union can harness carbon dioxide removals and so-called carbon farming …

A carbon market for buildings must be constructed on solid foundations

The EU must fix its current Emissions Trading System (ETS) before it embarks on the second phase focusing on buildings, writes Elisa Martellucci. This eventual ETS2 must be built, with close stakeholder involvement, on fair and equitable foundations. Anna is a young trainee at the European Commission. She arrived in Brussels and looked for an …