Doyle triumphant
On the EU ETS proposal, the environment (ENVI) committee gave its backing to all but one of the compromise amendments introduced by Parliament's rapporteur, Irish Christian Democrat MEP Avril Doyle. The main elements of the Doyle report (adopted with 44 votes in favour, 20 against with one abstention) include:
- The power sector should be obliged to obtain 100% of CO2 permits at auction after 2013;
- Energy-intensive industries should be required to obtain 15% of emissions permits at auction in 2013, with a gradual phase-in towards 100% auctioning by 2020 (a 5% decrease compared to the Commission's initial proposal for a 20% auctioning requirement);
- 500 million spare emissions allowances, normally reserved for new entrants into the EU ETS scheme, should be made available as an incentive/financing measure for large-scale commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration plants;
- The threshold for installations affected by the EU ETS should be raised from 10,000 to 25,000 tonnes of annual CO2 emissions;
- 100% of member states' auction revenues should be set aside or 'ring fenced' for climate-related purposes, whereby half of the money should be earmarked for developing countries;
- Installations should be able to achieve at least 40% of their targets through the financing of emissions reductions projects in third countries under the Kyoto Protocol's Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanisms (JI/CDM), but stricter rules on the validity of CDM projects would need to be respected;
- Up to 5% of emissions reductions could be obtained through the preservation of forests in developing countries under the condition that an international climate deal is in place.
Scuffle over carbon leakage
Doyle was credited for having carried the file through to completion despite infighting and an attempted 'mutiny' within her own political group, the European People's Party (EPP). An 11th hour attempt by a group of EPP MEPs, led by Christian Democrat MEPs Karl-Heinz Florenz (Germany) and Eija-Rita Korhola (Finland), to change the order of voting on amendments to the report was rejected by the president of the ENVI committee on procedural grounds.
In what was widely considered a blow to several industry lobbies, the committee then voted down a set of consolidated amendments co-authored and tabled earlier by Florenz and Korhola, who had the backing of a number of EU energy-intensive industries concerned about exposure to competition from producers in third countries with less stringent CO2 reduction policies.
Three quarters of MEPs from the EPP-ED group ended up voting against the Doyle report as a result.
By voting in favour of Doyle's compromises, the committee endorsed the rapporteur's position that sectors eligible for 100% free emissions allowances should be identified only after the conclusion of international climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009. Doyle's report also sets stricter criteria on the use of benchmarks for determining which sectors could receive free emissions permits.
Going for 30
The committee also gave nearly unanimous backing to the Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi's report on the Commission's 'effort sharing' proposal concerning the distribution of CO2 reduction measures between member states in non EU ETS sectors such as transport, agriculture, home heating and waste management.
Hassi's report calls for an automatic increase of the EU's target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 20% to 30% in the event that an international climate change deal is reached in Copenhagen. Her report also paves the way for possible financial penalties on member states that fail to realise their commitments, and it limits by one third (compared to the Commission's initial proposal) the amount of external credits member states can obtain through the funding of emissions reductions projects in developing countries.
The 'Schwarzenegger amendment'
In their last major vote of the day, ENVI committee MEPs signed off a report on a legal framework for CCS, authored by UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies. MEPs backed an amendment in the report that would require member states to set limits on the CO2 performance of power stations: after 2015, power plants' emissions cannot exceed 500 Kg of CO2 per kilowatt hour (Kwh).
The amendment, based on a similar measure introduced by California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to oblige power companies to install CCS equipment in particular on their coal-fired power plants, which produced the highest amount of CO2 compared to other types of electricity-generating installations.
Davies and Doyle had collaborated closely in the months leading up the vote, whereby Doyle's amendment on the use of funds from the EU ETS new entrants reserve combined with Davies's amendment for a CO2 limit on power stations are meant to drive the commercial development of CCS technology.
