EU lawmakers will vote again on controversial plans to make polluters pay more for the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, after narrowly rejecting the proposal last month, a top MEP said on Tuesday.
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee will issue a new report on June 19 on the plan to freeze pollution credits covering 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, committee head Matthias Groote said on his Twitter account.
The “report will then be submitted to a vote in (parliament’s) July plenary session,” Groote added.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, wants the freeze so as to force up the price of the pollution credits companies are required to buy to cover their CO2 emissions.
Prices are currently so low that companies are happy to pollute and pay for the credits rather than invest in the cleaner technology the Commission wants them to introduce as part of efforts to curb pollution.
The Commission says that if prices can be increased, companies will then see it is cheaper in the long-run to upgrade their technology.
Last month, the European Parliament voted 334 against the planned freeze, with 315 for and 63 abstentions, sparking another plunge in pollution credit prices and calling into question the future of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).