Countries try to dodge EU’s carbon market fundraising plan

European Union countries are hunting for alternatives to an EU plan to use a carbon market reserve to help finance their exit from Russian gas, as some fear the proposal would undermine the bloc’s main climate change policy.
As part of its aim to end Europe’s reliance on Russian gas this decade, the European Commission has said countries could raise 20 billion euros for new energy investments by selling CO2 permits stored in the EU carbon market’s “market stability reserve”.
The proposal ran in to resistance from some countries who said opening up the reserve would undermine the EU’s carbon market and depress the carbon price – making it cheaper for power plants and industries to pollute.
EU countries are negotiating the proposal, and plan to largely rewrite the EU’s idea. A draft of their latest negotiations text, seen by Reuters, would use CO2 permits from the reserve to raise only 4 billion euros.