The European Commission has been too secretive in its post-2020 EU ETS reform proposal and must publish more of its working, an independent watchdog said on Thursday.
An Impact Assessment Institute report found that evidence underpinning how the Commission decided on the proposal uses an unpublished analytical model not available for public scrutiny.
“This denies stakeholders the possibility to analyse the specific evidence and rationale behind the chosen legislative approach,” the institute said.
“All details of the underlying models should be publicly available. This would generate confidence amongst all stakeholders in the policy provisions and legislation, enhancing the value and level of acceptance of the final outcome,” it added.
The newly-formed institute has been critical of several elements of the Commission’s work surrounding the EU’s 2030 energy and climate goals. It has no powers to force changes at EU executive but was set up to scrutinise EU institutions with the aim of improving public policy.
It said that the result is that the following elements of the ETS package are called into question due to the uncertainly in the economic implications of the reduction target:
- The proposed linear reduction factor in the allowance cap of 2.2%, which is derived directly from the 40% GHG reduction figure
- The carbon leakage provisions for calculating the number of free allowances, whose analysis depends on the economic effects of the GHG reduction figure
- The efficacy of provisions on low‐carbon funding mechanisms that are dependent on economic effects
In addition, the report said the proposal’s impact assessment didn’t explicitly assess the options for how to decide on the free EUA allocation that is embedded in the final proposal.
By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com
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