Fsr Energy & Climate

In this episode, Auke Lont, CEO of Statnett, talks to Joana Freitas, Ambassador for the Lights on Women initiative of the Florence School of Regulation, about the key challenges around carbon pricing. The European Union currently has a mixed system to price emissions – 41% of greenhouse gas emissions fall under the Emissions Trading System (ETS), 7% are covered by carbon taxes and 4% fall under both instruments. Auke Lont considers that the EU ETS system “functions pretty well” and points out two improvements going forward – introducing a floor price and getting rid of free allowances. On top of that, Auke Lont also recognises the importance of specific measures outside the ETS scheme, particularly to accelerate innovation in getting CO2 out of the system. One of the key issues when pricing carbon is whether prices in different countries should be allowed to vary – a single price approach might have significant impacts on specific regions. The other issue is how to address emissions from different sectors of