The Carbon Rich List

The report 'The Carbon Rich List' by Sandbag analyzes the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) at a company level for 2008 and projections through 2012. It identifies a group of 'Carbon Fat Cats'—companies that received excessive free permit allocations, allowing them to generate windfall profits or bank permits for future use without reducing emissions. The report highlights a systemic imbalance where the power sector bears the burden of emissions reductions to compensate for industrial surpluses, and recommends tightening the scheme through higher targets, limited offsets, and improved company-level data reporting.

• Ten companies, termed 'Carbon Fat Cats', held a combined surplus of 35 million EUA permits in 2008, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of Latvia and Lithuania. These permits were valued at approximately €500 million at the time.
• By 2012, the top ten companies are projected to hold 230 million surplus EUA permits worth an estimated €3.2 billion. This asset value is more than double the funding provided by the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR) for clean technologies over the same period.
• There is a significant imbalance between industrial and power sectors; while the cement sector was universally over-allocated, the power sector has acted as a 'powerhouse' for reductions. A small number of power companies are required to deliver the majority of the EU ETS's net emissions reductions to offset industrial surpluses.
• Specific power companies, namely RWE and EON, were required to implement or pay for more emissions reductions than the net reductions required for the entire EU ETS scheme.
• The report argues that the current system allows companies to avoid emissions cuts through several methods: selling surplus permits for profit, lending permits to banks, passing the cost of permits to consumers despite receiving them for free, or using cheaper overseas offset credits.
• The Czech power company CEZ is cited as an exception in the power sector, holding a large surplus of permits in 2008 due to the Czech government's National Allocation Plan, which protected the company from the need to reduce emissions.
• Sandbag recommends that the EU increase its 2020 CO2 reduction target to at least 30% against 1990 levels, limit access to overseas offsets, cancel permits in Member State new entrants' reserves, and require reporting of parent company information to improve transparency.

APA

Pearson, A. (2010). The Carbon Rich List. Ember. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Carbon-Fat-Cats-2010.pdf

Chicago

Pearson, Anna. The Carbon Rich List. Ember, 2010. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Carbon-Fat-Cats-2010.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Pearson |first1=Anna |title=The Carbon Rich List |publisher=Ember |date=February 2010 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Carbon-Fat-Cats-2010.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{pearson2010carbon, author = {Pearson, Anna}, title = {{The Carbon Rich List}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2010}, month = feb, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Carbon-Fat-Cats-2010.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }