European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition

The ERCST Offices will be closed from 21 December 2022 – 2 January 2023.

LATEST PUBLICATIONS

November 10, 2022
ERCST Reflection Note – 2022 CCUS Forum: An overview
October 27, 2022
CBAM Report: Aligning the Design with Evolving Circumstances
October 27, 2022
The EU ETS is not going to solve the energy crisis, but can provide inspiration.
October 25, 2022
Reflection Note: EU ETS Review: Under the shadow of the energy crisis

UPCOMING EVENTS

RECENT EVENTS

RECORDINGS

At COP26 in Glasgow, Parties finalised and adopted the Article 6 Rulebook and so the Paris Rulebook, exactly 6 years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement. In Sharm el-Sheikh, they are faced with the new challenge of implementing such decisions. J. Werksman, Chief Paris Agreement Negotiator and head of the UNFCCC Task Force & Principal Adviser for International Aspects of EU Climate Policy, and A. Marcu, ERCST Executive Director, discussed the outcomes of COP27 and the EU view on these outcomes.
One of the most critically important issues of CBAM, yet to be resolved, is the question of how to compare the level of effort in third countries’ climate policies to that of the EU, in order to determine crediting against the CBAM. The US, for example, has embarked on a suite of transformational climate-related initiatives under its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), but employing subsidies rather than pricing. The IRA is a particularly salient example of evolving circumstances that invite further thinking about the CBAM’s elaboration and implementation. As well as the question of whether to credit for equivalent effort, the IRA’s heavy subsidization may have relevance for the CBAM’s design in the area of export rebates, timeline of implementation, and roll-back of free allocation. Other current events also have relevance. Many European industrial sectors were already struggling with long-term competitive challenges but are now also facing unprecedented costs because of the Russia-Ukraine war and longer-standing supply chain disruptions. Are these evolving challenges grounds for rethinking aspects of CBAM, or for an increasing focus on parallel supporting industrial policies? At this event, the ERCST Team launches its report on CBAM alignment with evolving circumstances, presenting its own recommendations, and discussing its analysis with experts.
While the focus of the European Commission Hydrogen Strategy clearly lies on renewable hydrogen, the strategy acknowledges that in the short and medium term, other forms of low-carbon hydrogen are needed to rapidly reduce emissions from existing hydrogen production and support the parallel and future uptake of renewable hydrogen. In a similar approach, the REPowerEU communication mentions that to achieve 10 million tons of EU renewable hydrogen domestic production, other forms of fossil-free hydrogen, notably nuclear-based are needed. Most of the different building blocks of the hydrogen regulatory framework were already presented in various parts of the Fit for 55 package and the hydrogen and decarbonized gas market package. However, the translation of the policy vision for low-carbon hydrogen portrayed in the strategy and REPowerEU into the proposals is still not complete. As an example, the European Commission has left the key elements of the low-carbon hydrogen definition for secondary legislation (to be proposed by 2024). This meeting intended to assess three main questions: Is it possible to ramp-up the EU-hydrogen economy without the contribution of low-carbon hydrogen? Would a technology neutral approach to incentives based on the carbon footprint of the hydrogen produced favor the ramp-up of the EU hydrogen economy? How could the demand side of the hydrogen market be supported in decarbonizing at affordable prices considering the current energy crisis?

OTHER MATERIALS

November 29, 2022
(Carbon) Contracts for Difference a policy update
October 28, 2022
Hydrogen incentives and the principle of technological neutrality
October 20, 2022
Presentation: Review of the EU ETS: Financial actors, ETS 2 & compensation
September 29, 2022
International Cooperation on BCAs – ERCST Presentation
VIEW ALL

LATEST NEWS

October 21, 2022
European ferro-alloys industry needs urgent help to survive energy crisis — Euroalliages: LME Week
June 15, 2022
EU carbon market reform: The Parliament’s last chance – Energy Monitor
June 1, 2022
Korea University: KU holds a seminar on international transferred mitigation outcomes to …
March 19, 2022
Study on carbon storage units and obligations under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement – OGCI

NEWSLETTER

Follow us and get the latest news from ERCST in Twitter and Linkedin