Top ten EU polluters revealed

A new interactive map has put the spotlight on major greenhouse gas polluters. Climate campaign group Sandbag has unveiled its new detailed map of all the polluters in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Around 12,000 installations across 27 EU member states are depicted on a Google map. The level of pollution in 2008 from each site is provided together with the number of free pollution permits that were granted in that year. Many large installations have been granted generous allocations of permits at a time when due to the recession they are actually reducing output. This creates many millions of spare permits that can either be sold to other would-be polluters or banked for future use. According to the group, industry could make as much as �5.4 billion from the sale of permits. Analysis at installation level reveals that just 10 European installations make up nearly 60 per cent of the whole EU industrial surplus. Just three installations owned by Arcelormittal make up 15 per cent of the whole EU surplus � their top ranking surplus installation is located just 50km from the European Parliament in Brussels. The installation with the largest surplus, Integriertes H�ttenwerk, has property rights to one in 10 surplus industry permits in the EU.