BRUSSELS, March 7 (Reuters) - The European Commission will propose to cull surplus emissions permits from the European Union's carbon market from 2013-2020, a senior EU source said on Monday, under a long-term plan for curbing greenhouse gases.
The Commission is due to publish its "Climate Roadmap to 2050" on Tuesday.
The EU emissions trading scheme caps carbon emissions from factories and power plants by issuing a fixed quota of permits, which are now in surplus after a financial crisis cut industrial pollution, causing carbon prices to fall.
The fate of a plan to remove several hundred million tonnes of permits from 2013-2020 had appeared uncertain earlier on Monday after squabbling between the energy and climate departments of the Commission, according to EU sources, but the climate department view had prevailed, an informed source said.
"The set aside has been re-inserted and the levels being considered are the same as previously," he said, referring to plans to remove 500 million-800 million EUAs from 2013-2020.
That compares with an annual allocation to industry of about 2 billion EUAs, each equivalent to 1 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.