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France calls for EU nations to adopt carbon price floor

  • 6 years ago (2018-03-06)
  • David Flin
Emissions 65 Europe 1089 Transmission 191

Brune Poirson, the French Ecology Minister, called at a conference in Brussels for a price floor of €25-30 per ton of CO2 in power generation to help accelerate the shift from coal to gas and renewables. Power generation accounts for roughly 20 per cent of the EU’s total emissions.

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Poirson said: “The prices are often too weak to push real change in behaviour, and yet this is what we need if we are going to accelerate the fight against climate change.”

The conference in Brussels brought together officials from France, Germany, Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden to discuss how to send a strong market signal toward meeting the EU’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2030. Carbon prices under the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) have suffered from a glut of permits, prompting reforms agreed this year. Benchmark prices in the EU’s cap-and-trade system hit €10.32/ton on 5 March. Analysts expect prices to continue rising.