Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate action commissioner, has rejected calls to introduce a price floor to sustain Europe's depressed carbon market, saying she does not want a "politically regulated system". In a wide-ranging interview with EurActiv, she also called for rolling back fossil fuel subsidies and shifting them to renewable energies instead.

...Europe's economic crisis has pushed down carbon prices to around €7 per tonne of carbon emitted, way below the €25 to €40 considered necessary to have a significant influence on business decisions.

But according to Hedegaard, economic crises are part of life and markets should be left alone. "None of us should be surprised when there is a huge crisis in Europe, and production is coming down, it is no wonder then that in a market-based system, that demand will come down and therefore also the price. That is how the market works."

"We will be in for so much more trouble if we had a politically-regulated system all the time."

Suuuuure. Because setting up the market itself was not political regulation...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}