On the environmental side, liberalisation has spurred a race to the bottom and has actually resulted in an increase in Carbon Dioxide and other emissions as highly polluting electricity plants are brought back into full operation. Predatory pricing policies of some electricity companies are targeting certain customers and competing operations in a desperate race to win market share. This has resulted in cogeneration plants being taken out of operation in the Netherlands and Germany. Liberalisation, through the incomplete way it has been implemented in the EU Member States has led to an environmentally and economically distorted market. The access to the power grid for new and clean producers is often prevented by the setting of unscrupulous prices by former monopolistic utilities still owning the grid.
Liberalisation takes no account of other important policy measures.
Chief amongst these is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels to mitigate impact on the climate. The EU, however, is far from being on track. Emissions are likely to jump again in 2000 with the effects of liberalisation. Cogeneration more or less doubles the efficiency of power production and thus is one of the single largest solutions to climate change world wide. Unfortunately it is currently one of the solutions that are most at risk from unfettered liberalisation, without regard for other policy objectives.