CAKE at ERCST Launch Event, 9.12.2025

CAKE at ERCST Launch Event, 9.12.2025

CAKE at ERCST Launch Event, 9.12.2025

On 9th December 2025, Marta Rosłaniec, our CAKE expert had the pleasure of participaing in the ERCST – European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition Launch Event presenting the “Future of emissions trading in the EU EU ETS – CBAM Package: A Strawman Report”. The discussion was highly relevant.

The report presented by the ERCST (European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition) team is clear, well-structured and, importantly, contains not only a description of the problems, but also practical solutions.

A few key points Marta Rosłaniec highlighted:

• Administrative burden remains a major challenge.
• Measuring embedded emissions is extremely difficult, even with benchmarks and without proper verification, resource shuffling becomes a real risk.
• CAKE’s latest analysis shows CBAM revenues could reach €5–9 bn in 2030, and nearly triple under wider coverage, but the administrative burden could also rise significantly.
• Carbon pricing outside the EU varies widely and often doesn’t align with EU rules; in our work we model three different scenarios.
• CBAM is highly price-sensitive, meaning its revenues are not a stable source for the EU budget or exporters.
• CBAM also affects electricity flows, for example when power transits non-EU countries, as in the Western Balkans.

These challenges link directly to our work under LIFE ENSPIRE, which looks at long-term integration of neighbouring countries into theEU ETS.