EU governments should seize the opportunity to scale up climate action, experts say
The European Commission this week missed an opportunity to scale up EU climate action by failing to introduce a mechanism to increase emissions targets over time, a European coalition of environmental NGOs said in a statement.
In its effort sharing regulation proposal presented Wednesday, the Commission outlined how to break down the EU-wide target to reduce emissions from transport, buildings and farming by 30 percent by 2030 into national targets for the 28 member states.
The EU envisions cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, but critics say that this target should be reached more quickly.
“The EU needs to increase its targets soon,” Anja Kollmuss, Europe climate policy coordinator at the Climate Action Network, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “If we stick to current targets, it will be too little and too late.”
If carbon emission targets remain at the level proposed this week, the EU would not be doing its share to reach the Paris Agreement goal to limit temperature rise well below 2°C, she said.
Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, spokesperson for climate action and energy at the European Commission, said that the proposal’s climate measures were fully in line with the Paris Agreement’s long-term targets.
“We are confident that the EU is well on its way to meeting its emissions target by 2030,” she said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Mohamed Adow, senior climate change advisor to Christian Aid, said that while the EU may be keeping its promise under the Paris Agreement, that commitment lacked the necessary ambition to avoid a dangerous temperature rise.
“Would the proposed emissions cut, if delivered, secure a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise limit?” asked Adow. “The answer is, of course, no.”
Kollmuss conceded that the Commission could not have changed the 2030 carbon emission reduction target, which was decided by the European Council. It could, however, control how strictly the climate plan was implemented, she added.
“There are a few loopholes – countries can for example use allowances from the emission trading scheme to count toward the target,” she said. “But this flexibility would disincentivise the EU as a whole from reducing carbon emissions beyond targets.”
In its statement, the Climate Action Network added that “the proposal lacks a crucial element that would allow to automatically strengthen inadequate national targets when the overall EU commitment is revised.”
(Editing by Zoe Tabary and Laurie Goering; please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
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