The European Commission is looking at various ways to support industries in an upcoming overhaul of the EU carbon market to prevent them moving to areas with lower pollution standards, the head of the Commission’s climate department said late on Wednesday.
Brussels is preparing a redesign of the European Union carbon market, the bloc’s most important climate change policy, which forces power plants and industries to buy permits when they emit planet-heating carbon dioxide, according to Reuters.
The Commission’s proposal for the revision, due after summer, will decide whether to continue the EU’s existing system of giving industries some free CO2 permits, to help them compete with foreign firms that don’t pay for their pollution.
“We are looking at what is the best way to protect against carbon leakage, and we are looking at all the options,” Kurt Vandenberghe, head of the Commission’s climate department, told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Brussels.
“Carbon leakage” refers to the risk that industries would relocate outside of Europe to avoid its stringent climate regulations.
