Under the deal, national governments will provide 300 million allowances from the "surplus" of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS; see EurActiv Links Dossier) to subsidise the construction of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstration plants.
On Thursday evening (11 December), the Council's draft conclusions indicated that only 150 million credits would be reserved, prompting the European Parliament's rapporteur on CCS, Chris Davies, to threaten to halt the legislation unless the Council "improves" its position.
The final decision comes close to the Parliament's demand for 350 million allowances, providing supporting funding of 7-9 billion euro. The agreed deal will only secure 6-7 billion euros, which Davies described as the "bare minimum" but a basis from which to proceed.
"At their climate change summit in March 2007, the same European leaders pledged to have 10-12 CCS demonstration plants in operation by 2015. What's been agreed today won't deliver on that promise but it's a very good step in the right direction," he said.
The European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants (ZEP) recently published a proposal for an EU demonstration programme in response to the European leaders' commitment. It argued that 10-12 projects would be necessary to make the technology commercially available by 2020, requiring 7–12 billion euro of additional financing to cover the extra cost of CCS installations and lower plant efficiency (EurActiv 12/11/08).
Eventually, securing an allowance increase came down to the efforts of Gordon Brown and the UK government. "At the very last minute, the British dug their heels in and obtained an increase in the number of allowances from 200 to 300," said Davies in praise of Brown.
MEPs and the French EU Presidency are scheduled to meet tomorrow to finalise the details of the agreement. The Parliament will then have to modify Irish MEP Avril Doyle's report on the EU ETS proposal to mirror the conclusions of the Council, so that it can be voted upon during the next plenary session on 17 December.
