European companies 'using emissions trading to subsidise overseas rivals'

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/20/europe-emissions-trading


Smoke rises from a cement plant in Hubei province, China. Some of Europe’s biggest emitters have bought cheap credits from developing or eastern European countries. Photograph: Reuters

Some of the companies that have complained loudest about the European Union's environmental measures are using the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS) to give money to rivals in other countries instead of cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions, it has emerged.

A report by Sandbag, a non-governmental organisation that examines carbon trading, found that some of the biggest steel and cement companies in the EU have been buying cheap carbon credits from steel makers in developing and eastern European countries as a way of reducing their need to cut or pay for emissions under the EU's emissions trading scheme. This effectively means they have been subsidising overseas rivals.

Baroness Bryony Worthington, founder of Sandbag, said: "A close look at the use of offsetting reveals that the steel sector is making great use of international offsets – to cover 45% of its emissions in 2011 … The fact that they are voluntarily sending money to rivals rather undermines their claims that their top concern about the ETS is its damage to their international competitiveness. It is clear from their use of offsetting that they know how to use the scheme to turn a profit and that their competitiveness complaints are overblown."