After blazing a trail in the climate fight, the EU political landscape has shifted right and climate concerns have taken a back seat to defence and competitiveness – Copyright AFP Carlos Fabal<\/p>\n
Adrien DE CALAN<\/p>\n
EU environment ministers will Tuesday make a last-ditch attempt to reassert the bloc\u2019s climate ambitions by nailing down key emissions targets in the run-up to the UN\u2019s climate summit in Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo come empty-handed to Belem,\u201d where the COP30 talks are taking place from November 10 to 21, \u201cwould really undermine the EU\u2019s credibility,\u201d warned an EU diplomat.<\/p>\n
Talks are expected to stretch into the night among the European Union\u2019s 27 member states, which have been haggling for months over two separate targets for slashing greenhouse-gas emissions: one for 2035 and the other for 2040.<\/p>\n
Behind only China, the United States and India in terms of emissions, the EU has been the most committed of the major polluters to climate action and has already cut emissions by 37 percent compared to 1990.<\/p>\n
But after blazing a trail, the EU\u2019s political landscape has shifted to the right, and climate concerns have largely taken a back seat to defence and competitiveness.<\/p>\n
Ministers\u2019 most urgent challenge on Tuesday is to reach a unanimous deal on an emissions target for 2035, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which Paris Agreement signatories are supposed to bring to the Brazil summit.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, they hope to lock in the support of a weighted majority of countries for the next big climate target set out by the European Commission on the path to carbon neutrality by 2050.<\/p>\n
The EU executive said in July it wanted to cut emissions by 90 percent by 2040, compared to 1990 levels \u2014 a major step towards net-zero.<\/p>\n
But the bloc\u2019s capitals have yet to endorse that next step, which would require sweeping changes to industry and daily life at a time of growing concern over adverse impacts on Europe\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
Spain and the Nordic countries support the 2040 proposal, as does Germany \u2014 with some caveats. But Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy remain opposed, citing risks to their industrial sectors.<\/p>\n
Heavyweight France, meanwhile, has kept observers guessing, drawing criticism from environmental groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Paris\u2019s list of demands are guarantees its nuclear sector would not lose out under green transition plans, funding for clean industries, and wiggle room on emissions should Europe\u2019s forests absorb less carbon than expected in years to come.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Balancing act\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
To win over the staunchest sceptics, Tuesday\u2019s talks will cover a range of \u201cflexibilities\u201d for member states, including letting countries count carbon credits purchased to finance projects outside Europe.<\/p>\n
A commission pledge for credits to account for up to three percent of a nation\u2019s 2040 emission cuts failed to win over hardliners, with countries including France pushing for a higher threshold of five percent.<\/p>\n
Some countries also want a review clause in the 2040 climate law, allowing the target to be reassessed every two years.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups have been pushing back.<\/p>\n
\u201cMember States should not further undermine the proposals on the table through unnecessary loopholes,\u201d warned Sven Harmeling at Climate Action Network Europe.<\/p>\n
But a diplomat involved in the process defended the compromise shaping up in Brussels, while conceding it was \u201cnot necessarily pretty\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the muddy, messy, nasty real world out there, we are trying to achieve something good,\u201d said the diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a careful balancing act,\u201d summed up a second diplomat, who said countries \u201cseem to be converging\u201d on an agreement.<\/p>\n
With the clock ticking down to COP30, EU countries in September agreed to a non-binding \u201cstatement of intent\u201d for the bloc to cut emissions by between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent by 2035.<\/p>\n
To avoid deadlock, ministers are expected Tuesday to formalise that range as the bloc\u2019s legally binding NDC under the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simply unthinkable that the EU would arrive in Belem without an NDC,\u201d said a French government source. \u201cThat would be a diplomatic disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU insists it remains committed to its role as global climate leader, having mobilised 31.7 billion euros ($36.6 billion) in public climate finance in 2024, making it the world\u2019s largest donor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After blazing a trail in the climate fight, the EU political landscape has shifted right and climate concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[7029,71617,5293,728,2000,299,5187,7498],"class_list":{"0":"post-547490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-cop30","10":"tag-diplomacy","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-un"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115489021960795408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}