Category: General

Dear Sir or Madam,

Economist Veronika Grimm has sharply criticised the German government’s new fuel rebate scheme. She told the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* that it was “cynical” to subsidise the use of internal combustion engines at the expense of the younger generation. Opportunistic politics may be intended to appease voters, she argued, but it leads to their frustrated rejection of established parties, “because they simply aren’t doing their job”. This affects both opponents of climate action and business leaders, who, in the face of this short-sighted approach, “can only shake their heads”.

The German automobile club ADAC had also argued in favour of reducing the electricity tax instead, which would have provided relief to all businesses and citizens in Germany.

The first ‘early auctions’ for the EU ETS2 are due to take place as early as January 2027 at the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in Leipzig; this scheme will replace national emissions trading for the buildings and transport sectors.

As a member of the EEX, we would be grateful if all our readers could let us know whether they are interested in participating in the auctions, as this is also information of interest to the EEX energy exchange. We will, of course, pass on all information in an anonymised form.

Last week, prices in the EU ETS1 rose moderately as the submission deadline draws nearer. The benchmark EUA contract on the ICE rose by a further 1.6 per cent, trading within a range of 84.07 to 88.53 euros.

This week, the EEX will offer a total of 9,922,500 EUAs for auction across four trading days.

Anyone who still has an outstanding requirement for EUAs to be surrendered by the end of the month should place their buy order by next week at the latest, so they can approach the deadline with peace of mind.

(EUA, EUA2, UKA, Natural Gas, Crude Oil and Euro Currency shows day-end-exchange quotes of the benchmark contract. This market information has just an informational character and are no advice or offer to trade emission allowances or their futures and options. If you want to unsubscribe, please reply to this mail.)

Please call our international carbon desk if any further questions exist: +49.2831.1348220 or book here a call with one of our specialists.

With kind regards,

Your Advantag – Team

Dear Sir or Madam,

The children and young adults who have attracted a lot of attention with the Fridays for Future movement are protesting climate policies that they believe are not ambitious enough to make their future and that of subsequent generations worth living.

This fear has meanwhile been overtaken by the reality of dramatically increasing environmental disasters; advancing climate change is already threatening our prosperity today. Despite all the uncertainty about its exact extent, there is no doubt that the costs of climate damage will significantly exceed the costs of preventing climate change.

Against this backdrop, one might expect a clear, stringent policy that sets the climate-economic framework through clear messages and decisions. However, the extreme change of direction in the US could also increasingly be reflected in European climate diplomacy. As the culmination of this policy, on 12 February the US government under President Donald Trump repealed the so-called 2009 Endangerment Finding, which classified greenhouse gases such as CO2 as hazardous to health and formed the basis for many environmental laws. Trump and the US Environmental Protection Agency argued that these regulations were damaging to the economy and should therefore no longer be applied.

Many environmental organisations and individual states have already announced that they will take legal action against this.

The EU member states Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Luxembourg also made it clear that they reject this ostrich strategy and warned against further postponing the new EU emissions trading scheme for buildings and transport (ETS2) or gutting it through structural interventions.

At the same time, the European Council is working on a technical refinement of the market stability reserve (MSR) regulation so that additional allowances can be brought onto the market more quickly in the event of price spikes. It is to be hoped that this will remain merely a fine-tuning exercise so that the climate signal is not further weakened and investments are not held back or even implemented in a climate-damaging manner due to uncertain political conditions.

In an interview last week, EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra rejected the notion that climate policy is the main driver of high energy prices. Instead, his agenda focuses on creating demand for clean products, accelerating infrastructure expansion and massively increasing capacity in batteries, solar and wind power — with the aim of reducing prices in the long term, strengthening independence and securing jobs.

In the short term, he cites reducing bureaucracy and national tax levers as options for relieving the burden on the economy. For Hoekstra, climate protection, competitiveness and strategic autonomy must be considered together to keep energy-intensive industry in Europe. Social balance must not be neglected in the process.

Last Saturday, the US military launched extensive attacks against the regime in Tehran, which came as no surprise. At the same time, Israel also launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran. The price of Brent crude oil reached a seven-month high at settlement; in early trading today, it initially rose further. A barrel (159 litres) for delivery in April rose by almost $10 or 14 per cent in the first few minutes of trading, reaching $82.37, its highest price since January 2025. After initial double-digit gains at the start of trading, oil prices gave up some of their gains by 0.30 a.m. but were still up around nine per cent.

After the previous upturn, EUA prices had a weaker trading week, losing all the gains made in the previous week. The market experienced its sharpest decline on Thursday, when the price fell by more than 3 euros within just one hour. This attracted several compliance buyers, which led to a slight recovery until Friday’s settlement.

(EUA, EUA2, UKA, Natural Gas, Crude Oil and Euro Currency shows day-end-exchange quotes of the benchmark contract. This market information has just an informational character and are no advice or offer to trade emission allowances or their futures and options. If you want to unsubscribe, please reply to this mail.)

Please call our international carbon desk if any further questions exist: +49.2831.1348220 or book here a call with one of our specialists.

With kind regards,

Your Advantag – Team