European Union countries are split over the bloc\u2019s next climate target, as they prepare for tough negotiations to set an EU goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.<\/p>\n
The European Commission is preparing a proposal for the EU\u2019s 2040 climate target, aimed at keeping countries on track between the EU\u2019s existing targets to cut net emissions 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels, by 2030 and reduce them to zero by 2050.<\/p>\n
Brussels had planned to propose a 90% net emissions cut for 2040 last month, but delayed this amid a pushback from some countries and lawmakers, who must approve the goal and are concerned about its costs for struggling European industries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it\u2019s a good target,\u201d Mika Nykanen, Finland\u2019s state secretary for climate told Reuters, of the 90% commitment, on the sidelines of a meeting of EU environment ministers in Warsaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need an attractive, solid investment environment in Europe, and if we change the big targets or change the policies, it will create uncertainty among investors and companies,\u201d Nykanen said.<\/p>\n
Denmark, the Netherlands and Slovenia are among those backing 90%. Governments including Italy and the Czech Republic oppose, citing concerns for manufacturing sectors reeling from US tariffs and cheap imports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t support it just now, the reason is the impact on the heavy industry,\u201d Czech environment minister Petr Hladik said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Europe is the world\u2019s fastest-warming continent and is experiencing worsening droughts and other extreme weather linked to climate change.<\/p>\n
But governments are grappling with other priorities including industrial competitiveness. Negotiations on past EU climate targets have stoked divisions between richer and poorer countries, with coal-reliant Poland among those concerned about the cost of the energy transition.<\/p>\n
Estonian environment minister Andres Sutt told Reuters the Baltic nation had calculated it can cut net emissions 80% by 2040 \u2013 but that going further would depend on whether nascent carbon capture technologies scale up fast enough to cut emissions in sectors like cement making.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it going to happen? As a profound believer in innovation and technology advancement, I think it will \u2013 but before one can really commit, you need to have this flexibility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Faced with political pushback, the Commission is considering flexibilities to soften the 90% emissions target.<\/p>\n
These include counting international carbon credits towards the target, which could weaken the CO2-cutting efforts it demands from domestic industries. Germany\u2019s new government has proposed this, but said credits should be limited to covering just three percentage points of the 90% goal.<\/p>\n
France is also interested in the idea, if there are safeguards to ensure any international carbon credits deliver real emissions reductions in other countries, a government source said. [Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Union countries are split over the bloc\u2019s next climate target, as they prepare for tough negotiations to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1700,728,2000,299,5187,12072,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-60902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-foreign-affairs","14":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114422710490617259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60902","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=60902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}