EU's flagship green scheme siphons cash from consumers and employers to energy fat cats

Catalogue & Shop - CO2.1: Beyond the EU's Emissions Trading System

The EU's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the flagship tool of European environmental policy, designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions swiftly and inexpensively. In this report, David Merlin-Jones argues that the EU ETS fails on both counts: it provides only marginal emissions reductions and at a high cost to businesses and consumers. The EU ETS pushes up energy bills, increasing fuel poverty, while power companies make billions in windfall profits. Vested interests have all but paralysed the effectiveness of EU ETS, with banks making billions out of playing the carbon credit market. Criminal activity is rife, at one point constituting up to 90 per cent of all EU ETS market activity.