EU climate change plans 'a failure'
Updated on 07 March 2007
In an exclusive interview with this programme, Andres Piebalgs admits the Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme - designed to cut emissions in the EU and meet Kyoto commitments - are too lax.
On Friday European leaders meet to hammer out emission targets for the next 50 years.
While here, a report has shown Britain's utility companies have pocketed hundreds of millions of pounds by charging customers for carbon credits they'd received for free.
Mr Piebalgs told Channel 4 News that carbon pricing was a failure.
'If you give allowances for free ... you can expect that you have too many allowances and that's what happened.'European commissioner for energy Andres Piebalgs
"Yes, I would describe it was a failure. If the price is less than one euro it is a failure. And we also know the reasons. "
He said the price of carbon needed to be at least 20-30 euros per tonne.
"If you want to create a market you shouldn't make too many compromises - and the mistakes were obvious.
"If you give allowances for free, on a not very clear basis, you can expect that you have too many allowances and that's what happened.
"So we knew that the basic mistake was too many allowances given for free, and we should find a way for dealing with this."
