The European Commission’s upcoming June package of energy and climate laws will “propose the extension of the emission trading scheme to sectors such as building and road transport,” the EU’s energy commissioner Kadri Simson said on Thursday (25 March).

The inclusion of both road transport and buildings into the EU’s cap and trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions has been mooted ever since the new Commission took office, in December 2019.

However, the official line until now was that officials were looking into the pros and cons of the proposal, with the results of that assessment due to be unveiled officially in June. In a keynote address to a debate on clean technology organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, Simson appeared to confirm that the Commission will indeed propose to extend the ETS to include buildings and transport. The EU’s June package “will include revising our legislation for energy efficiency and renewables in line with our new ambitions” for 2030, Simson said.

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