Carbon Fat Cats 2011
The companies making lots of money (and not many carbon savings) through Europe's flagship climate policy
Europe controls half of its carbon emissions through the Emissions Trading System (ETS).
It's one of the world's biggest policies aimed at promoting a low-carbon, clean energy future.
Unfortunately, the sensible principle of having tradable pollution allowances (EUAs) has been
undermined - some of Europe's biggest polluters have been handed millions more allowances than they need - for free.
Carbon Fat Cats 2011 finds that:
- the top ten Fat Cats are all Iron & Steel and Cement companies
- between 2008-2010 they accumulated 240 million tonnes of surplus allowances, enough to cover the combined annual emissions of Austria, Denmark, Portugal and Latvia
- this surplus is worth €4.1bn1, four times Europe's entire environment budget over the same period and could grow to €5.65bn1 by the end of 2012.
In spite of this, these companies are prominent members of trade associations that are actively
lobbying to undermine reforms that would improve the ETS.
Europe cannot let a small group of entrenched industries derail its chance of prosperous, low-carbon future.
1 Based on a €17.03 EUA price (06/05/11)
2 Adjusted for waste gas transfers
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