The European Commission has defied science, prioritised polluters over people and shirked some of its global responsibility by weakening the EU’s 2040 climate target. This is bad news for climate action and for those hardest hit by rising temperatures.
As much of Europe sizzles under record or near record temperatures, the European Commission has finally released, after months of delay, its proposed 2040 climate target for the European Union, through an update of the EU Climate Law. Although it is welcome that the EU executive has kept the net 90% emissions reductions target alive on paper , the language on so-called “flexibilities” to achieve the target it has introduced threatens to capsize EU climate action in reality.
Despite vocal opposition from civil society organisations, academia and progressive businesses, including Carbon Market Watch, the Commission’s proposal to bank on questionable international carbon credits and rely on risky carbon removals in the 2040 target ignores the advice of scientists and enables the wealthy EU to shirk some of its international responsibility instead of shouldering its fair share of climate action. .
“While people across Europe struggle to work in a heat wave and the climate crisis continues to destroy lives and livelihoods, the Commission is seeking to preemptively accommodate governments lacking political will rather than find ways of making them live up to their previous commitments and future challenges. This is not what climate leadership looks like,” says Sabine Frank, CMW’s executive director.
Political willpower
This effort to move the goalposts is being portrayed as a pragmatic measure to ensure continued political buy in. However, despite the political backpedalling on climate action in the halls of EU power, the citizenry itself is still very much solidly behind greater climate ambition.
Not only do 85% of Europeans identify climate change as a serious threat, 81% support the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal but most believe their countries aren’t doing enough and want to speed up the green transition, according to the latest Eurobarometer public opinion survey.
“The choice of the European Commission is to do less, while citizens want the European Union to do more,” says Sam Van den plas, policy director at Carbon Market Watch. “The carbon offsetting loopholes introduced today are nothing more than distractions and delays from the climate action Europe needs. EU policymakers should get their priorities straight and focus on real emission reductions instead of bookkeeping tricks.”
When 90% is not 90%
The proposed loopholes will weaken an already less than robust target. The net 90% reduction target is on the lower end of the 90%-95% range that the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change said is necessary and feasible for the EU to achieve its climate objectives under the Paris Agreement. Now the new “flexibilities” could allow the use of international credits from the UN’s Article 6 framework to substitute 3% of 1990 net emissions. The stipulations are vague and a necessary safeguard on absolute quantities is lacking. But in any case it means that the EU would offset millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2040 by purchasing carbon credits from other parts of the world instead of cutting these emissions itself.
Moreover, the carbon markets created under Article 6 suffer from structural problems which undermine their effectiveness and risk outsourcing the necessary domestic EU emission reductions to the countries of the Global South, which are least responsible for the climate crisis, yet bear the brunt of its impact.
“It’s reckless of the Commission to propose counting carbon credits towards the EU’s climate target,” observes Jonathan Crook, CMW’s lead expert on global carbon markets “This loophole will delay urgently needed domestic mitigation, potentially incur billions in costs, and rightfully weaken global trust in the EU as a supposed climate leader.”
Hiding behind the net
By choosing to combine different types of removals and emission reductions into the EU’s proposed 2040 target, the European Commission runs the risk of opening up a Pandora’s box wherein low-quality carbon credits derived from questionable or unproven practices are used to offset very real emissions. This has the knock-on effect of deterring effective climate action and slowing down the industrial decarbonisation process.
The proposal does not even contain the basic safeguard of a ‘maximum contribution’ of removals to the target – an approach that was part of the EU Climate Law till now. The Commission’s Communication on 2040 from February last year also contained a residual emissions target: including that in this proposal would have been an enormous step forward.
By adding technical removals, land sinks and emission reductions into the same target without any differentiation, the European Commission is mixing apples with pears. It missed a golden opportunity to enshrine separate targets for permanent carbon removals, sequestration in natural carbon sinks and emissions reductions, which is widely recognised by a wide spectrum of stakeholders and the EUs own climate science advisors as a cornerstone of transparent and effective climate action.
“Separate targets would have provided clarity on the planned emission reductions, heightened the urgency of protecting our natural sinks and given predictability to companies working on sustainable technical removals,” said Fabiola De Simone, a CMW expert on carbon removals
Back to the drawing board
It’s not too late for the revised EU Climate Law. The European Parliament and Council now have the responsibility to rethink and reshape this proposal and remove the unhelpful and problematic “flexibilities” the Commission has introduced.
“Loopholes and creative accounting might work on paper but they cannot change reality. We are in the midst of a climate crisis that requires urgent action if we are to stave off a catastrophic future,” concludes Frank.
Further reading
Flexibilities in 2040 target risk breaking the EU carbon market – study
Civil society blueprint for EU carbon removals policy
FAQ: Why separate carbon removals from other climate targets?
