The EU has agreed to reach climate neutrality by 2050 and has enshrined this objective in the European Climate Law. Achieving this objective necessitates a transformation of the EU economies that requires significant additional investments across all sectors. One key source of climate financing could come from the auctioning revenues of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). However, currently there is comparatively little attention given to how auctioning revenues are spent.

Ecologic Institute was commissioned by WISE Netherlands to take a more in-depth look at how Member States are spending their auctioning revenues, and if and how they are using them for climate action. Furthermore, we wanted to understand the political context and the narrative around auctioning revenues. For this purpose, we conducted eight country case studies, namely Czech, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. We based our analysis on Member States' reporting to the European Commission regarding the use of auctioning revenues, desk research on legal documents and interviews with relevant experts from ministries and NGOs.

The case studies as well as associated policy recommendations are presented in a technical report. A summary, targeted at stakeholders and the interested public, shows the main findings of the report. Both can be found here.