Tag Archives: european
UPDATE 3-Carbon Wins Lifeline After Tight EU Parliament Vote
Wed Jul 3, 2013 * Carbon price jumps as much as 13 percent * Close 344-311 vote follows months of wrangling * Will need member state backing to become law * German economy ministry says still against the plan (Adds comment, updates prices) By Michael Szabo, Nina Chestney and Andrew Allan STRASBOURG/LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) – The European Parliament after months of bitter debate backed a plan on Wednesday to boost carbon prices, throwing a lifeline to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the bloc’s push for greener energy. EU politicians in Strasbourg voted 344-311 in favour of temporarily removing up to 900 million permits from trade , tackling oversupply that has sent carbon prices to record lows. The plan will now require backing from a majority of EU countries to become law. “A lot of member states are coming out in favour …We need to see what the formal vote is. Realistically, it will not be until after the German elections (in September),” EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard told Reuters. The ETS is a cornerstone of European Union climate policy, but a much higher carbon price is needed to achieve its goal of spurring industry to invest in low-carbon energy. EU politicians voted against a plan put forward last month but agreed to allow a one-off intervention in the market to temporarily withdraw up to 900 million permits. Companies and utilities buy these to cover their excessive carbon emissions output. “The ‘yes’ vote should provide a short-term boost to carbon prices and confirms the EU’s commitment to the success of the ETS and to implementing the long-term improvements that are still needed,” said Thomas Rassmuson, founding partner at CF Partners, an investment firm specialising in renewable energy. TEMPORARY BOOST? EU carbon prices were down ahead of the vote but traders took the outcome as a signal to buy, with prices jumping as much as 13 percent to 4.86 euros a tonne in afternoon trade. Shares in Germany utility E.ON briefly turned positive after the vote before falling back on a lower benchmark DAX index. RWE shares were down 0.9 percent. Analysts have estimated that EU carbon prices could average 8 to 9 euros over the next eight years, almost double current levels, if the plan to temporarily remove permits is implemented. Ultimately, they say carbon prices must reach levels of 40 to 50 euros to drive investment in lower carbon energy, something governments are keen to see happen to help them reach environmental targets. Poland opposes efforts to bolster carbon prices, however, as its economy still relies heavily on carbon-intensive coal . Germany has failed to take a formal position as the economy ministry opposes it on concerns it will hurt competitiveness, while the environment ministry supports the plan. “Today’s decision is regrettable. The economy ministry’s criticism remains unchanged,” a ministry spokesman said. Other opponents include energy-intensive industries loath to pay higher energy costs, free trade advocates against intervening in markets, and some who argue temporary removal of permits will not raise carbon prices to meaningful levels. Some energy companies have strongly supported the permit removal plan. Finnish utility Fortum said it marked a step toward needed, deeper reform. “A more profound renovation of emissions trading is necessary,” Fortum Chief Financial Officer Markus Rauramo said, noting the market would benefit from the setting of 2030 EU emissions reduction targets. (Additional reporting by Christoph Steitz, Barbara Lewis, Nerijus Adomaitis, Michel Rose, and Sarah Marsh; editing by Jason Neely) Continue reading
After Failed Attempt in April, Europe Approves Emissions Trading System
Ina Fassbender/Reuters Wind turbines and a coal power plant in Germany. Europe approved a measure aimed at raising carbon permit prices. By STANLEY REED Published: July 3, 2013 LONDON — The European Parliament approved on Wednesday a measure intended to revive sagging prices and confidence in the European Union’s emissions trading system, the centerpiece of Europe’s effort to cut greenhouse gases and a model for similar systems around the world. The vote had taken on symbolic importance because Parliament had rejected a similar proposal in April. That vote threatened the carbon trading system, which has been emulated globally as a way of using markets to curb greenhouse gases. The measure passed on Wednesday in Strasbourg, France, by a vote of 344 to 311 after intense lobbying by the European Commission and some national governments, including those of France, Denmark and Finland. It also gained stronger backing from liberal and socialist groups. Among those opposed were the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic, which were wary of the plan’s impact on their energy-intensive industries. A large moderate group, the European People’s Party , was divided, leading many of its members to abstain. “This was to some extent a symbolic vote indicating support more broadly for Europe’s carbon policies,” said Stig Schjolset, an analyst at Reuters Point Carbon, a market research firm based in Oslo. A negative vote would have meant “that European policy makers did not want to fix the carbon market and use it as a key tool to combat climate change,” he said. Richard Seeber, an Austrian and spokesman on the environment for the European People’s Party, voted in favor of Wednesday’s legislation after voting ‘no’ in April. He said he was persuaded by an amendment ensuring that the intervention in the market was “a one-off” and by a requirement that an assessment be made about “carbon leakage,” the extent to which businesses would leave the European Union to avoid the higher permit price. “It is essential to keep the E.T.S. as the main market-based instrument to fight against climate change,” said Mr. Seeber, referring to the emissions trading system. The market for carbon credits reacted positively, rising to about 4.70 euros, or $6.13, per ton, a 9 percent increase for the day, on heavy volume. The approved proposal will try to shore up prices for permits to emit greenhouse gases by delaying the auctioning of some of these allowances in the coming years through what is called backloading. Carbon permits are licenses for companies to release greenhouse gases. The idea behind the European cap-and-trade system is to tighten the amount of permits available each year so as to make polluting more costly, forcing companies to switch to greener technologies. But Europe’s prolonged economic downturn and generous allocations of allowances have created a glut of permits that cut the price to as low as about 2.75 euros a ton after the negative April vote. In a sense, the system is working by providing relief at a time of economic stress. But analysts say that a price of 30 euros a ton or higher is needed to persuade companies to switch to cleaner fuels like natural gas, the main alternative to coal for generating electric power. Coal use in Europe boomed last year. Analysts caution that the number of allowances that will be held off the market, about 900 million, is estimated to be only about half of the surplus of permits that would otherwise have built up by 2020, so it will not by itself shift the carbon market from bear to bull mode. “I think the backloading itself will have limited impact on prices because the market remains significantly oversupplied,” said Roland Vetter, head of research at CF Partners, a carbon trading firm based in London. In addition, there are still negotiations with Europe’s national governments and other hurdles to clear before the changes are put into effect, perhaps in the early part of next year. “This is a marathon, not a sprint, so today is not the end of the story,” said Miles Austin, the executive director of the Climate Markets and Investment Association, an industry group based in London. Business groups, some of which had lobbied against the measure, were critical of what they described as interference in a market system. “Even a one-off intervention undermines the principles of the emissions trading system and will make it more difficult for businesses to produce cost-effectively in the E.U.,” Arnaldo Abruzzini, secretary general of Eurochambres, which represents European chambers of commerce, said in a statement. But the world’s pioneering carbon market has a pulse again. Among supporters of carbon trading there is now hope that Europe will in a couple of years adopt structural changes that would lead to permanently higher prices. Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, said the purpose of the backloading measure was to “stop the bleeding with the drop in the carbon price while we were discussing more challenging issues.” The simplest overall change that would raise the price would be to “reduce the cap,” or permanently reduce the number of allowances available, said Robert N. Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. But such a move “is very difficult to do at a time like this,” he said. With Europe mired in recession, politicians do not want to saddle Europe-based companies with even higher costs, especially considering that their American competitors are benefiting from lower energy prices thanks to the discoveries of shale gas. Also, the United States seems to have more or less permanently rejected a cap-and-trade system after the House of Representatives passed one in 2009 that later failed in the Senate. For some businesses, that left the European system looking like yet another burdensome and costly regulatory initiative. “Europe thought it would take the lead and the U.S. would follow,” Mr. Stavins said. Instead, the United States rejected cap and trade and that is affecting the cost of carbon-intensive services in Europe, he said. Mr. Stavins said that countries like Australia, Japan and China were all experimenting to various degrees with systems like the one Europe adopted. A version of this article appeared in print on July 4, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: After Failed Attempt in April, Europe Approves Emissions Trading System. Continue reading
How Might The US Engage At The UNFCCC?
Posted July 3, 2013 President Obama’s recent speech on climate change marks a welcome shift for an Administration that has been largely silent on the issue for some time now and puts into context the climate teasers that were dropped into the Inauguration and State of the Union addresses. As many commentators have now discussed, the speech focused mainly on the steps that the USA will take to deliver on its Copenhagen pledge. Whether theses steps will be sufficient remains to be seen, but they are nevertheless concrete and doable, which are two important prerequisites for success. But the very end of the speech was perhaps the most important turning point for me, in that it marks the first real attempt by the USA to guide the global political process on climate change since, perhaps, the mid 1990s when the Kyoto Protocol was hammered out. Of course the Administration put tremendous effort into the process in the lead-up to Copenhagen and President Obama went to the negotiations along with many other leaders, but at that point in time his Presidency was less than a year old, which in the context of the UNFCCC process is really not very long. There just hadn’t been enough time for the new Administration to really make its mark. On the back of the following three short paragraphs are we now going to see the USA in the driving seat, and what will that mean? With over three years left in the Obama Presidency, there is certainly time to guide the international climate process. And finally, my Administration will redouble our efforts to engage our international partners in reaching a new global agreement to reduce carbon pollution through concrete action. Four years ago, in Copenhagen, every major country agreed, for the first time, to limit carbon pollution by 2020. Two years ago, we decided to forge a new agreement beyond 2020 that would apply to all countries, not just developed countries. What we need is an agreement that’s ambitious — because that’s what the scale of the challenge demands. We need an inclusive agreement -– because every country has to play its part. And we need an agreement that’s flexible — because different nations have different needs. And if we can come together and get this right, we can define a sustainable future for your generation. The current state of the international post 2020 discussion remains lacklustre at best. Although there is some progress on items left over from the Copenhagen era, for example the Green Climate Fund, almost nothing has transpired on what might happen in the period after 2020. Further, a series of national pledges under some sort of international umbrella of ambition is highly unlikely to deliver any real shift in global emissions, more structure is needed. In the mid 1990s the USA did set the agenda and drive the pace with its idea of building a global carbon market, starting with clearly defined ambition in developed countries, supported by carbon pricing instruments (most notably the AAU) and strong compliance. Many countries adopted this approach and the EU embraced it by cascading its own obligations into an internal carbon market, as did New Zealand and eventually Australia. Although such a Kyoto style framework is not on the agenda now, there is still much to learn from its implementation as I have discussed in earlier postings . In particular, a new market mechanism which mimics the role of the AAU for those that wish to link their domestic carbon is one possible option. This could at least lay the foundations for a global carbon market. Difficult though it may be, key architecture questions are on the table today, yet progress in addressing them is at a standstill. This is where American (and European) leadership is required. Simply trying to coax ever greater pledges out of the likes of China and India isn’t a route to success, rather a clear and robust framework needs to emerge that will drive energy investment down a lower emissions pathway and trigger one technology in particular, carbon capture and storage (CCS). Love it or hate it, carbon pricing remains a key deliverable . CCS will eventually be triggered by a carbon price, but in the interim an international agreement needs to ensure that this technology appears on a near commercial scale in a dozen or so countries / regions (e.g. North America, EU, Russia, Oceania, Gulf States, South Africa, China and India). Continue reading
