ROME — The Italian government wants the European Union to hit pause on its flagship climate law, the 20-year-old Emissions Trading System, in the latest in a flurry of attacks on the bloc’s efforts to slow global warming.
Italy had already announced plans to subsidize power companies in a way that would undermine the core idea of the ETS: making polluters pay for their planet-warming emissions. But on Thursday it went further, demanding Brussels suspend the mechanism entirely ahead of a broader review of the policy later this year.
“The ETS mechanism, as currently designed, is nothing more than a tax, a levy on energy-intensive companies,” Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso told reporters upon arriving at Thursday’s meeting of economy and industry ministers in Brussels.
“It is necessary to revise it substantially. … To do this properly, the ETS mechanism must be suspended pending a reform,” he added.
