A European Parliament vote this month is likely to increase pressure for intervention to help rescue the European Union's carbon market from failure as it wrestles with a supply glut, which has pushed prices to near record lows. In December, the Parliament's environment committee voted for action, garnering cross-party support and briefly triggering a nearly 30 percent surge in the price of EU carbon allowances (EUAs). The EU cap-and-trade scheme covers around half of the region's carbon dioxide emissions, but the Commission has estimated the market to be oversupplied by up to 2.4 billion permits and international carbon credits between 2008 and 2020. The supply glut, while Europe's sovereign debt crisis slows industrial output and growth of emissions, knocked down the benchmark carbon price by around 50 percent last year. It hit a record low of 6.30 euros a tonne on Dec. 14.

Others pressing for action to support the market include oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell, which has an interest in carbon capture and storage and needs carbon prices to be high enough to justify it.