16.5.2023
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
L 130/153
(87)
Certain Member States already have national carbon taxes that apply to the buildings, road transport and additional sectors covered by Annex III to Directive 2003/87/EC.
Therefore, a temporary derogation should be introduced until the end of 2030.
To ensure the objectives of Directive 2003/87/EC are achieved and that the new emissions trading system is coherent, the option of applying that derogation should only be available where the national tax rate is higher than the average auctioning price for the relevant year, and should only apply to the surrender obligation of the regulated entities paying such a tax.
To ensure stability and transparency of the system, the national tax, including the relevant tax rates, should be notified to the Commission by the end of the transposition period of this Directive.
The derogation should not affect the external assigned revenue for the Social Climate Fund or, if established in accordance with Article 311, third paragraph, TFEU, an own resource based on the auctioning revenues from emissions trading in the buildings, road transport and additional sectors.
(88)
For emissions trading in the buildings, road transport and additional sectors to be effective, it should be possible to monitor emissions with high certainty and at reasonable cost.
Emissions should be attributed to regulated entities on the basis of fuel quantities released for consumption and combined with an emission factor.
Regulated entities should be able to reliably and accurately identify and differentiate the sectors in which the fuels are released for consumption, as well as the final users of the fuels, in order to avoid undesirable effects, such as a double burden.
In the small number of cases where double counting between emissions in the existing EU ETS and the new emissions trading system for the buildings, road transport and additional sectors cannot be avoided, or where costs arise due to the surrender of allowances for emissions from activities not covered by Directive 2003/87/EC, Member States should use such revenue to compensate for the unavoidable double counting or other such costs outside the buildings, road transport and additional sectors in accordance with Union law.
Implementing powers should therefore be conferred on the Commission to ensure uniform conditions for avoiding double counting and allowances being surrendered for emissions not covered by the emissions trading system for buildings, road transport and additional sectors, and for providing financial compensation.
To further mitigate any issues of double counting, the deadlines for monitoring and surrendering in the new emissions trading system should be one month after the deadlines in the existing system for stationary installations and aviation.
To have sufficient data to establish the total quantity of allowances for the period from 2028 to 2030, the regulated entities holding a permit at the start of the system in 2025 should report their associated historical emissions for 2024.
(89)
Transparency as regards carbon costs and the extent to which they are passed on to consumers is of key importance for enabling swift and cost-efficient emission reductions in all sectors of the economy.
This is of particular importance in an emissions trading system which is based on upstream obligations.
The new emissions trading system is meant to incentivise regulated entities to reduce the carbon content of the fuels, and such entities should not make undue profits by passing on more carbon costs to consumers than they incur.
While full auctioning of emissions allowances under the emissions trading system for the buildings, road transport and additional sectors already limits the occurrence of such undue profits, the Commission should monitor the extent to which regulated entities pass on carbon costs, so that windfall profits are avoided.
In relation to Chapter IVa, the Commission should report annually, where possible by type of fuel, on the average level of the carbon costs which have been passed on to consumers in the Union.
(90)
It is appropriate to introduce measures to address the potential risk of excessive price increases, which, if particularly high at the start of the new emissions trading system, may undermine the readiness of households and individuals to invest in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
Those measures should complement the safeguards provided by the market stability reserve and that became operational in 2019.
While the market will continue to determine the carbon price, safeguard measures will be triggered by a rules-based automatic mechanism, whereby allowances will be released from the market stability reserve only if one or more concrete triggering conditions based on the increase in the average allowance price are met.
This additional mechanism should also be highly reactive, in order to address excessive volatility due to factors other than changed market fundamentals.
The measures should be adapted to different levels of excessive price increase, which will result in different degrees of intervention.
The triggering conditions should be closely monitored by the Commission and the measures should be adopted by the Commission as a matter of urgency when those conditions are met.
This should be without prejudice to any accompanying measures that Member States might adopt to address adverse social impacts.