“The informal tax on energy”. This is how much Poland earned on the sale of CO2 emission allowances
Sale of CO emission allowances2 brought PLN 90 billion to the Polish budget over 10 years. This year, over PLN 15 billion has already been received. Part of the money must be allocated to the energy transformation, with the remaining amount the government can do as it sees fit.
In the ETS program, which has been in existence for 10 years, i.e. the program for the sale of CO emission allowances2 – which is supposed to control the level of greenhouse gas emissions – the Polish budget earned a total of almost PLN 90 billion, according to data from the EEX exchange and the Ministry of Finance. Since 2020, PLN 75 billion has been received in this regard, Business Insider informs.
Money from CO emission allowances2 support the energy transition and other goals
The state does not have full freedom in spending these funds: at least half should be allocated to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. As for the other half, there are no such restrictions: they can be used for road construction, debt repayment, social programs.
“BI” reports that on August 2, at the Polish auction of the EEX exchange in Leipzig, the state sold almost 4 million tonnes of emission allowances for EUR 81.39 each
for a total of EUR 110 million, which translates to PLN 487 million at the average exchange rate of the National Bank of Poland on that day. March was a record year this year, when the government managed to raise PLN 3.4 billion. From the beginning of the year to August 2, PLN 15.4 billion has already been received. For comparison, in the entire 2022 it was PLN 23.3 billion.
The money is paid mainly by power plants powered by lignite and hard coal. However, they include this in their bills, so the final cost is passed on to customers.
Last year, domestic companies subject to the ETS system had 184.1 million tons of verified emissions, the state budget sold allowances to 63 million tons, and 42.5 million tons of free allowances went to enterprises.
Thus, there were no emission allowances for 78.6 million tonnes for domestic entrepreneurs, who had to buy them at auctions from other countries. In this way, we indirectly subsidize the energy transformation of, for example, Italy, France and the Netherlands, sums up the “BI” journalist.
