National Emissions Certificates Trading Law (NEHG)

Nationales Emissionszertifikatehandelsgesetz (NEHG)

Country	Austria , applies nationwide
Time period	Open ended, started on 01 October 2022
Context	Green Transition, Restructuring Support Instruments
Type	Legislations or other statutory regulations
Category	Reorientation of business activities – Change of production/Innovation
Author	Bernadette Allinger (Forba) and Eurofound
Measure added	07 November 2022 (updated 18 October 2024)

Background information

The National Emissions Allowance Trading Act is intended to make a decisive contribution to achieving the climate targets by bringing about an ecological steering effect and making the use of innovative, low-emission technologies more attractive.

The objective of this federal act is a gradual introduction of a cost-efficient and effective measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are not subject to EU emissions trading. This is intended to contribute to the achievement of long-term targets of the Paris Agreement.

Content of measure

The NEHG 2022 covers energy-related greenhouse gas emissions that have been produced by the non-ETS-sectors, such as buildings, transport, agriculture, waste and small industrial plants. This essentially concerns the fossil energy resources petrol ,gasoil, heating oil, natural gas, liquefied gas, coal and kerosene.

The scope of the law is limited to placing energy sources into free circulation. By linking the responsibility to the entity placing the energy source into circulation, conformity with the energy taxes is achieved.

Trading participants are obliged to acquire emissions certificates for the energy sources placed into circulation. An emission certificate corresponds to one tonne of CO2-equivalent, CO2e.

Use of measure

There are three different phases. The first two phases are fixed price phases, where the emissions certificates will be assigned a specific price, which is:

€30,- in 2022
€35,- in 2023
€40,- in 2024
€45,- in 2025

On 1 January 2026 the market phase starts, which means that the national emissions certificates are intended to be traded on a free market.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Applies to all businesses	Applies to all citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	No special funding required

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

No involvement
Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

No involvement.

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