Although the European Commission is meant to carry out a thorough impact assessment before proposing new policies, the European Union’s policymaking process is increasingly being influenced by business lobbies and guided by political expediency and whim. This approach will result in serious negative consequences.
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.
Apparently, EU lawmakers are exploring four potential loopholes to weaken the target under the guise of “greater flexibility”. Under consideration are suggestions that include postponing climate action until the latter half of the 2030’s, allowing for more flexibility between EU sectors, or relying on international offsets and additional carbon removals to somehow fill the gap caused by EU inaction.
A novel co-creation initiative involving a broad spectrum of stakeholders led to the development of a joint blueprint for carbon removals policies in the European Union.
Not only does the Climate Law not mention the different roles of biogenic sequestration by natural sinks and permanent removals, but it also fails to determine how much or which type of removals should be used to reach the net-zero target by 2050, or how much residual emissions will be allowed at that point.
Despite voters’ clear concern about rising temperatures and their support for more ambitious climate action, the EU and other elections this year risk empowering political forces hostile to green policies. What can activists and concerned citizens do?
EU Climate Law negotiators must keep emission reductions and forest protection as separate targets and agree to cut pollution by 65% over the next ten years. Forests play a vital role as carbon sinks in efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change. They are essential for all life on Earth. They need protection so that they …
Read more “Why Europe cannot rely on forests to meet its climate targets”
There is a lot of hype around possibilities of sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and the topic is also on the EU policy-making agenda. Plenty of ways to do this exists already, but all of them come with challenges. Understanding and defining what “carbon dioxide removals” are, is a first step towards avoiding policy …
Read more “Carbon removals: a hot topic that requires a cool head”
November 18th, 2020 14:00 – 16:30 REGISTRATION Background: The IPCC 1.5°C Special Report states that, in addition to the urgent need to cut CO2 pollution, significant carbon dioxide removals (CDR) will be necessary over this century. However, there are, potentially, risks involved in getting CDR policies wrong. Counting on removals that fail to materialise or …
Read more “On the Way to Climate Neutrality: Defining Real and Credible Carbon Removals”
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