LONDON (Reuters) - Britain pressed the European Commission on Wednesday to introduce tighter and uniform security features for national emissions registries to prevent fraud after almost 3.4 million carbon permits were stolen.
Emissions registries administer and transfer EU carbon permits under the bloc's emissions trading scheme. A coordinated cyber attack on some registries last month resulted in the theft of 50 million euros' ($67.5 million) worth of permits.
"The registries are in many ways akin to bank accounts, and we believe that similar security features should be standard across EU registries," Greg Barker, the UK's minister for climate change, wrote in a letter to EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard.