The head of Europe’s largest utility said countries need to put a price on carbon in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and meet climate targets. Francesco Starace, CEO of Italy-based Enel, speaking Oct. 5 at the Reuters Impact virtual summit, said the world’s larger economies need to lead on developing strategies and taking more action to reduce emissions to meet the targets set in the 2015 Paris agreement.

“Please put a price on carbon,” Starace said at the event, being held less than one month before the United Nations’ COP26 conference on climate change begins in Glasgow, Scotland. Many analysts agree that putting a price on carbon—be it via a tax, emissions trading system, or cap-and-trade strategy—is needed to lessen emissions from the power generation sector and help cleaner energy resources better compete financially with legacy generation such as coal- and natural gas-fired power.

The World Bank earlier this year reported that only about 20% of global emissions were involved in a carbon-pricing scheme, and said most of those prices were not high enough to achieve the Paris agreement’s target of a rise in global temperatures of less than 2C, or preferably just 1.5C, above pre-industrial levels.…

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