Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what consideration her Department has given to the exclusion of irreducible process emissions in applying the reduction under the EU Emissions Trading System.

Andrea Leadsom

The Government supports the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) as a market-based approach to achieve least-cost decarbonisation and maintain a level playing field across the EU. The total cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the EU ETS does not discriminate between different sources of emissions. However, the Government recognises the large proportion of process emissions within some industrial sectors, such as cement. We have engaged with the cement and other sector bodies to understand the enablers and barriers to deep decarbonisation, including through the joint industry-Government decarbonisation roadmaps. The Government supports the proposal that the EU ETS, in future will provide funding for innovation and demonstration projects to overcome technological barriers to long-term emission reduction by industry.