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Carbon leakage: A positive contribution to EU 2020 emissions targets
Organization: Private citizen
Brussels to play down 'carbon leakage' threat
Sir,
Regarding ‘Brussels to play down ‘carbon leakage’ threat‘:
We should call the bluff that industry is playing on carbon leakage.
It would be more in our interests to encourage inefficient, energy-intensive, EU ETS-subsidised [European Emissions Trading Scheme] companies to exit Europe, because it could:
1) Reduce the EU’s carbon footprint rapidly and significantly.
2) Reduce the amount of primary energy needed by the EU (reduced strategic exposure).
3) Have a minimal impact on employment.
4) Cause new, more efficient plants to be built elsewhere, thus reducing the overall global footprint (energy prices are global and so effciency will be maximised in the new plant).
5) Allow the products imported from the exiting companies to be carbon taxed more easily because they are non-domestic and compete with those companies that stay (let’s call it a ‘black mark tax’).
6) Allow the saved carbon credits to be used to subsidise consumers wishing to purchase the MOST efficient major domestic appliances, boilers, home insulation, EU-produced electric cars, etc.
7) Should all that be unpalatable, then as a minimum, heavily tax the profits that companies make from EU ETS trading and use the proceeds to support smart grids and smart meters, home insulation and other future scoped efficiency programs.
At least then the ordinary EU citizen would benefit from, rather than pay for (directly or indirectly), the EU ETS.
