Senior Policy Analyst, Climate and Circular Economy
Email: ewatkins@ieep.eu
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7340 2686
Emma joined IEEP in May 2007. She has a degree in European Studies and French and spent nine months of her studies as an intern with a UK MEP in Brussels. After graduating she lived in Brussels for six years, firstly undertaking an internship in the Secretariat-General of the European Commission. She then worked for the Brussels representations of two UK regions (the East of England and London) on EU environment, transport, and energy policy, as well as coordinating their communications work. Emma works on waste, sustainable consumption and production, resource efficiency, marine litter and environmental taxation issues.
The EU is moving ahead on its ambition to develop and implement a European circular economy, as ambitioned by the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) and its subsequent proposals. However, this objective is inherently intertwined with the rest of the global trading system, in addition to continuous geopolitical developments which risk complicating an already complex transition.
The circular economy involves a major paradigm shift, with economies transitioning away from a take-make-waste model to a sustainable model. The EU is a global leader and adopted its ambitious Circular Economy Action Plan under the Green Deal in 2020.
This new report finds that EU polluters are not currently paying for most of the environmental damage they cause and explores how taxes and other economic instruments could help to better apply the polluter pays principle.
This new report explores challenges related to the future management of waste batteries from electric vehicles, focusing on the approaches taken by the European Union and the Republic of Korea.
Following French president Emmanuel Macron’s decision to rethink a carbon tax on vehicle fuel in the face of widespread protests, Celine Charveriat and Emma Watkins consider what lessons policymakers should learn from the gilets jaunes affair.