Focus Eco Center > ClimateFair Monitor: Towards climate-neutral buildings and road transport

ClimateFair Monitor: Towards climate-neutral buildings and road transport

The decarbonisation of buildings and road transport (DBRT) is high on the EU’s agenda. Two powerful tools, the extension of the EU Emissions Trading System to cover these sectors (ETS2) and the Social Climate Fund (SCF) are expected to greatly contribute to this aim. These measures are closely related to households’ daily life, making them socially sensitive and prone to be used by climate deniers to undermine the EU’s climate policies.

The project aims to monitor the fairness, transparency and efficiency of current and proposed spending in DBRT and SCF, increase awareness among decision-makers and the general public, promote stakeholder participation, and thus help to build public support for effective carbon pricing and the best use of the revenues. The project also monitors the implementation of related policies, programmes and projects as far as the project partners’ capacities allow. The project also contributes to the upcoming planning at the national level, identifying obstacles, best practices, lessons learned and mistakes committed.

 

The necessity and purpose of the project

The EU’s climate action is set to raise carbon pricing. Higher prices may lead to social hardship and social unrest if effective social measures at the national level are not taken to support citizens, and particularly the poorest and middle/low-income households, in their transition away from fossil fuels. Anti-environmentalist and climate-denier forces may exploit this price surge to defend the “right” to keep fossil heating or diesel cars. The upcoming ETS2 with its related Social Climate Fund will be a cornerstone that might strongly reinforce these voices if the implementation and its communication are inadequate.

The Social Climate Plan that every EU member state (MS) will have to draft by 2025 will be likely based on existing patterns of expenditures. However, in many cases, these patterns have not contributed to achieving the required decarbonisation and have often benefited primarily better-off people.

For these reasons, it is important to learn more about the causes for the shortcomings of the current schemes, benchmark the best practices implemented across the EU and other jurisdictions with effective carbon prices, and provide all stakeholders with this information.

The implementation of ETS2 is also full of challenges, especially in CEE countries. Since ETS2 will increase the price of fossil fuels used in households, many households will be tempted to turn to the burning of solid fuel: biomass (predominantly wood), but also lower quality wood biomass and potentially even worse materials, such as treated wood, plastic, tyres and other waste. All this would have a very detrimental effect on the climate, environment and not least public health.

In the transport sector, unless policies are correctly targeted, a possible rebound effect could lead to a substantial increase in fuel tourism and fuel smuggling from non-EU countries.

Moreover, increasing mobility-poverty is challenging due to relatively low urbanisation rates in certain areas and underdeveloped public transport.

Furthermore, MS might introduce national measures and support investments that could neutralise or even jeopardise the positive effects of the ETS2 and SCF.

All these pitfalls can be avoided with proper planning and implementation but there is a general lack of knowledge about the above-mentioned problems and the possible solutions, so appropriate awareness-raising is key to success.

Expectations of the project

  • Long-term: Contributing to making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low GHG and climate-resilient development, as stated in the Paris Agreement.
  • Short term: Improve the level and quality of the use of financial instruments for EU climate action by focusing on the game-changing actions at the national level, providing valuable inputs for better fiscal policy also on EU level, and raising the awareness of civil society.
  • Impact: In our expectation, ETS2, SCF and related policies will provide more targeted and effective support for climate and environment action, while incentives and funding for programmes and projects which are incompatible with the European Green Deal will be reduced. This will help to catalyse faster decarbonisation of the EU economy and boost climate mitigation in all sectors. The issues identified during the project will be very useful to all EU countries. The fiscal policy relating to the climate will be improved in the involved countries, with likely impacts in further countries thanks to international networking and capacity building beyond the project team.

Project activities

  • Capacity Building: Empowerment of civil society organisations, including capacity building measures to engage in assessing the implementation of ETS2, SCF and related policies and programmes
  • Knowledge transfer: Assessment of the current situation and future plans on national levels for ETS2, SCF and related policies and programmes, including assessments of their implementation.
  • Policy recommendations: Preparation of recommendations for improving the implementation of ETS2, SCF and related policies and programmes, including best practice examples
  • Communication: Raising awareness of relevant stakeholders as well as the general public about ETS2 and SCF, their necessity and how they can be best implemented.

Previous work on the topic

The current project is a continuation of four former projects:

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