Decision 2014/746 - 2014/746/EU: Commission Decision of 27 October 2014 determining, pursuant to Directive 2003/87/EC, a list of sectors and subsectors which are deemed to be exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage, for the period 2015 to 2019 (notified under document C(2014) 7809) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 308/114

Directive 2003/87/EC provides that auctioning should be the basic principle for allocation of greenhouse gas emission allowances to operators of installations within the scope of the Emission Trading System of the Union (‘EU ETS’) from 2013 onwards. However, eligible operators continue to receive free allowances between 2013 and 2020 in accordance with the rules set out in Directive 2003/87/EC and Commission Decision 2011/278/EU (2).

The absence of an ambitious international agreement on climate change aiming to limit the global temperature increase to 2 °C could undermine the benefit of actions carried out by the Union. The absence of binding action at the international level could lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in third countries where industry is not subject to comparable carbon constraints (‘carbon leakage’). To address this risk of carbon leakage, Directive 2003/87/EC provides that, subject to the outcome of the international negotiations, the Commission is to determine a list of sectors and subsectors deemed to be exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage (‘list of sectors and subsectors’). Those sectors and subsectors should receive free allowances at 100 % of the quantity determined on the basis of Directive 2003/87/EC and Decision 2011/278/EU, subject to the cross-sectoral correction factor referred to in Article 10a(5) of Directive 2003/87/EC and set out in Annex II to Commission Decision 2013/448/EU (3).

In this respect, the Commission analysed the extent to which third countries representing a decisive share of global production of products in sectors and subsectors on the carbon leakage list firmly commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in those relevant sectors, and whether those commitments are comparable with those of the Union and are carried out within the same time-frame. In addition, the extent to which the efficiency of the installations located in those countries is comparable to the installations located in the Union was also examined. The Commission concluded that no sufficient comparability can be established on the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore the comparability of carbon efficiency is not relevant.

The first list of sectors and subsectors deemed to be exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage was established for 2013 and 2014 by Commission Decision 2010/2/EU (4) in 2009.

The assessment should be based on a number of quantitative and qualitative criteria, and based on data from the three most recent years. In this regard, the Commission used data from the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, since data from 2012 were available for only some of the parameters.

In order to establish the list of sectors and subsectors, the Commission assessed the risk of carbon leakage of sectors and subsectors at NACE-4 level of the Statistical classification of economic activities in the Union in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of...