EU carbon rules hinder Poland’s plans for new coal power

EurActiv reports on Poland’s failed strategy on EU's ambitions to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The country appears to have lost its fight to exempt new coal-fired power stations from paying for European Union emissions permits, as an EU document showed on 29 March 2011.

Warsaw aimed to exploit ambiguous wording in an EU climate agreement from 2008, but EU officials in Brussels have tightened up the loophole and restricted that option.

Ministers agreed in December 2008 that from 2013 all EU power producers would have to pay for permits to emit each tone of carbon dioxide – the main gas blamed for climate change.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: EU proposes sweeping climate change fight / EU outlines ambitious emissions goals http://www.europeansources.info/record/eu-proposes-sweeping-climate-change-fight-eu-outlines-ambitious-emissions-goals/

European Commission: Press release: IP/11/375: Emissions trading: rules on transitional free allocation of allowances to the power sector adopted http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/375&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: Press release: MEMO/11/201: Emissions trading: Questions and Answers on rules and guidance on allocation of free allowances to the power sector http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/201&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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