European Union lawmakers backed a proposal on Tuesday to allow the EU Commission to prop up record low carbon prices by withholding 1.4 billion permits from the third phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, sending prices 20 percent higher.

The majority of the members of the European Parliament's cross-party environment committee backed changes to an energy efficiency bill that could give the EU Commission the power to intervene in the carbon market it set up, after it misjudged the amount of permits EU industry needed to cover their emissions.