EU carbon prices briefly slid 40% to a record low after politicians opposed plans to support the market, raising concerns prices could hit zero and sending a warning to European governments to pull together in lowering carbon emissions.
Prices in the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS) on Thursday (24 January) dropped to €2.81 a metric tonne after a vote in the European Parliament's energy and industry committee opposing a scheme known as "backloading" - or supporting prices by extracting allowances from the market and reinjecting them later.
Some of the companies that have complained loudest about the EU's environmental measures are using the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS) to give money to rivals in other countries instead of cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions, it has emerged.
