Prague – The agreed adjustments in the EU’s climate policy are merely partial concessions, and the risks of major problems and loss of competitiveness for both the Czech and European industries continue to persist, evaluated today the results of the EU ministers’ meeting by the Chamber of Commerce and the Confederation of Industry and Transport. According to them, this is rather just a postponement of some issues to a later date. They also pointed out that the conditions in the legislation will be key. This follows from comments made by both organizations to ČTK. The Heating Association stated that the postponement prolongs the advantages for households that produce heat from fossil fuels themselves.
“ETS 2 needs a thorough revision, not just a one-year delay of the problem,” said the director of the legislation, law, and analysis section of the Chamber of Commerce Lenka Janáková. The reduction of the climate target to 85 percent and the possibility of reducing emissions through international credits, according to her, means a real easing of ambition by two percentage points. “However, it is unclear what happens if the credits do not cover the full five percent; then the pressure for domestic measures will increase,” Janáková said.
The Confederation of Industry is particularly dissatisfied with the plan to reduce emissions, which it assesses as unrealistic and threatening to the Czech industry. “The European industry is in very poor condition because it suffers from persistently high energy prices compared to the rest of the world and declining competitiveness also due to excessive regulation. We are concerned that the impacts on the Czech Republic will be disproportionate due to the high share of industry in Czech GDP, even though it is a union target and the contribution of the Czech Republic is not specified,” said the general director of the confederation Daniel Urban. According to him, the main burden of the reduction will fall on industry and energy.
According to the Heating Association, the adjustments to the climate target will not have a significant impact on current decarbonization activities in the heating sector. The association understands the effort to postpone the ETS 2 system. “However, we must point out that this prolongs the completely illogical advantage for households that produce heat from fossil fuels themselves, against households connected to heating plants, which will invest over 200 billion CZK in decarbonization over the next five years,” the association stated.
According to analysts, the adjustments to the EU’s climate targets will bring short-term relief, but in the long term, it does not represent a mitigation of the union’s current policy. Quite the opposite. The postponement of the ETS2 system, according to them, will only increase the cost of permits in the coming years. Analysts also point out that the establishment of a new climate target for 2040 is actually a reinforcement of the Green Deal. Given that there has been no target for 2040 so far, it is actually a tightening of the existing rules. The overall EU targets have not changed, so states will have to achieve emission reductions in a shorter time. (November 5)
