Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
News
Publish date: March 12, 2021
News
The recent report adopted by the European Parliament supporting the introduction of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is a breakthrough step in EU Climate policy. For the first time in the history of the European Union, we have an agreement within a wide majority of the Parliament plenary for the introduction of a robust, coherent, WTO compatible and most importantly, correct, carbon pricing mechanism to ensure that imports into the European Union are priced for the carbon content, the same way goods produced in the EU are.
As an own initiative report, this sets the strategic direction of travel for the discussion in the future and several of the elements which this report consolidated and received a plenary approval for good building blocks for the upcoming European Commission’s proposal on the topic. The discussion has moved from the if we should have, to a concrete vision and proposal of how it should look like and what the role of this policy in the wider policy mix will be.
Here are top 10 ‘good for the climate’ elements of the report:
All in the Parliament has come in support of the introduction of WTO compatible CBAM, defined what that means and gave, for the very first time, a clear vision and a specific way forward. This includes specific mentions to the preference for creating a separate pool of allowances and incorporate an extremely thorough accounting for emissions, which we will most certainly need in the run up to 2050.
For more information about our stance, here you can find Bellona’s input to the CBAM open consultation: here for the one from April 2020 and here for the latest one, from November 2020.
The closing line for this blog is only the starting point for a bigger process to be taken up by the European Commission, text directly taken from the European Parliament’s INI report on the introduction of a WTO Compatible CBAM:
“The European Parliament supports the introduction of a CBAM, provided that it is compatible with WTO rules and EU free trade agreements (FTAs) by not being discriminatory or constituting a disguised restriction on international trade; considers that as such, a CBAM would create an incentive for European industries and EU trade partners to decarbonise their industries and therefore support both EU and global climate policies towards GHG neutrality in line with the Paris Agreement objectives; states unequivocally that a CBAM should be exclusively designed to advance climate objectives and not be misused as a tool to enhance protectionism, unjustifiable discrimination or restrictions; stresses that this mechanism should support the EU’s green objectives, in particular to better address GHG emissions embedded in EU industry and in international trade, while being non-discriminatory and striving for a global level playing field” (art. 7)
Read more on Bellona’s position on Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in our consultation response.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.