In a letter on the review of the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), seen by EUROPE on Friday 18 November, the Polish Climate and Environment Minister, Anna Moskwa, asked the EU’s key negotiators on the issue to exempt households from the future carbon market to cover emissions from building heating and road transport (ETS2 or ETS-BRT).
“The Parliament has voiced its concerns and proposed to exclude households from the scope of the BRT (see EUROPE 12977/10), which I wholeheartedly support”, the minister writes.
In her view, the ETS2 will place an additional burden on households at a time when they are being hit by the current energy crisis.
The current period is not the right time to “conduct an experiment with new market-based solutions in such a vulnerable sector” the letter says, while highlighting the risk of undermining public support for the implementation of climate policies in the coming years.
And the minister insisted: "We want our citizens to be warm and safe in winter and this is not an issue on which there can be a compromise during the trilogues. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)