🇪🇸 In case you needed one more reason to cheer for Spain today…

💚 While several EU member states are taking stabs at dismantling the ETS, Spain is coming out in its defense: President Pedro Sánchez explicitly described the EU ETS as the “cornerstone” of EU climate policy and opposes proposals to weaken or suspend the system.

🤷 Why would Spain take such a different stance to Germany, Italy, and many others? 

⚡ Already today, Spain is generating 56% of its electricity and 42% of its energy consumption from renewables. As a result, Spain is expected to overachieve its sectoral (ESR) 2030 emission reduction targets by 7%. This creates a surplus in allocations estimated to be worth over €10b in 2030.

🎯 Meanwhile, laggards like Germany and Italy are widely expected to fail their 2030 targets, with associated costs of €16.2b and €15.5b respectively.

📉 A retreat from climate ambition and carbon pricing could thus have a direct impact on Spain’s future revenues.

💶 My take: this is exactly how this mechanism is supposed to work. Pioneers who overinvested in decarbonising their economies should be rewarded, while those dragging their heels should pay. 

🤓 Instead of trying to change the rules now that they are falling behind, countries should learn from the example of Spain (or Portugal) and embrace the transition.

👇 Curious for your thoughts - especially my Spanish peers who will be much more plugged in than I am.

✉️ Want to cut through the noise? Stay up to date with the top 10 CDR policy news with my monthly briefing, The GigaTen: https://lnkd.in/d2BKe7gr

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