The coming shakeup of EU Emissions Trading System: what’s at stake?
The need to foster and drive innovation within industry to reach the 2050 climate targets and addressing the question of how can EU ETS help companies to adapt their technologies were at the centre of the panel debate organised by POLITICO Europe on 20 April.
The panel consisted of Marco Mensink, Cefic Director General, Haege Fjellheim, Head of carbon research at Refinitiv, Adam Guibourgé-Czetwertyński, Deputy minister at the Ministry of Climate and Environment of Poland and Diederik Samsom, Head of cabinet of European Commission Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans.
In a very lively exchange, POLITICO’s Climate Correspondent Kalina Oroschakoff engaged panelists by immediately jumping to the most pressing issues such as the rocket growth of emission prices and the inclusion of construction and transport sectors in the upcoming EU ETS reform.
Speaking on behalf of the chemical industry, Marco Mensink stressed that in order to incentivise the shift to green energy resources, it is important that the revenues are re-invested into low carbon technologies.
The focus on the carbon price is not the key question in the ETS debate, the price is “the outcome of the system”. Instead, we need to focus more on how the ETS could help governments and industries efficiently adapt and drive innovation and efficiency gains, he explained.
Marco Mensink also noted that avoiding policy silos is key as the industry needs a coherent framework across all areas of EU policy, from environmental legislation to innovation to attract investments into breakthrough technologies and green transformation.
“In addition to the sectoral roadmaps in the Climate Law, what we actually need is a Sectoral Green Deal, where we can sit around the table and connect all the different things together.”
Marco Mensink, Cefic Director General
Would you like to find out more about how the chemical industry could rapidly incentivise the huge investments into industrial transformation by 2030?
Join our Digital Dialogue Accelerating EU Investments In Breakthrough Green Deal Technologies: Can Carbon Contracts Make A Difference? on 5 May. This session will investigate the role of Carbon Contracts for Difference (CCfD) to mitigate the uncertainty around the future emissions allowances prices and support the deployment of first-of-a-kind technologies. CCfD offer governments the opportunity to guarantee investors a fixed price that rewards CO2 emission reductions above the current price levels in the EU ETS.
Meet the speakers
