EU states express doubts over carbon offset ban

European Union member states may oppose new rules on how far their factories and power plants can offset their carbon emissions, as desired by the European Commission, environment ministries told Reuters.

According to a report by Reuters, the EU Executive Commission is expected to propose, in the next two weeks, curbs or an outright ban from 2013 on the use of the most common types of offsets.

Europe‘s emissions trading scheme caps planet-warming gases emitted by industry, but allows companies to offset emissions by paying for carbon cuts in developing countries, as a cheaper alternative to cutting their own.

Closing the main supply of such offsets could push up carbon prices, if agreed by a majority of member states at a meeting of Commission officials and environment ministers later this month.

”From Poland‘s perspective, of course, key problems are those installations, which have to buy enormous amounts (of offsets), price hikes would be problematic for them,” said Urszula Allam-Pelka, an official at Poland‘s Environment Ministry.

Allam-Pelka did not say that Poland would oppose a ban. East European countries, including Poland, have previously disputed their carbon caps seeing these as a handcuff on economic growth.

Europe‘s carbon market forces companies to submit permits for every tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, which are trading at about 15 euros per tonne.
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