The Environment Ministers of the 27 will meet this Tuesday in an emergency to close an agreement on the new CO2 cutting targets for 2035 and 2040. The commitments must be presented at the 30th United Nations Climate Conference (COP30), which starts on November 6 in Belém, Brazil.
The European Union is risking its credibility and its global leadership in the fight against global warming in this battle, once Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement for the second time.
However, internal divisions between Member States and growing doubts in Brussels about the green agenda They already led to the failure of the previous Environment Council held on September 18. In the past month and a half, the Danish EU presidency has continued to work to bring positions closer together, but success is still not guaranteed.
“We believe that all the ingredients necessary to reach an agreement are on the table. We know the positions of the Member States, we have clear guidelines from the highest political level and we have the necessary fundamental pieces on the table,” says a spokesperson for the Danish presidency.
“We are in a moment in which the majorities are not evident. If everyone maintains their list of maximums, the agreement will not be possible“, contradicts a much less optimistic European diplomat.
“Delaying climate action or reducing our ambition below the necessary trajectory is an invitation to waste money and lose investment opportunities,” warned the first vice president of the Commission and head of the Green Transition, Teresa Ribera.
“It is a sign of weakness and incoherence, with enormous economic and human costs.“, says Ribera.
“I ask the Ministers of the Environment to support authentic European competitiveness: socially responsible and environmentally coherent,” claims the number two of the Community Executive.
The Commission Von der Leyen proposed in July a 90% CO2 cut by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, which corresponds to an intermediate decrease in 72.5% for 2035.
In parallel, Brussels proposed – with Ribera’s agreement – to introduce a series of “flexibility” measures to appease critics. The most important one consists of allow the purchase of international CO2 credits again in developing countries to cover up to 3% of the required effort.
But even these concessions have not served to convince the most reluctant member states, such as Poland, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. At the opposite extreme, the Government of Pedro Sánchez and Minister Sara Aagesen continue to defend the highest level of climate ambition in Brussels.
Germany and France forced the discussion to be raised to the level of heads of state and government, a debate that took place on October 23. There, the leaders demanded expand the percentage of international CO2 credits that can be used to meet the new goal.
The heads of State and Government also asked to introduce “a review clause, in light of the most recent scientific evidence, technological advances and the evolution of the challenges and opportunities of the EU’s global competitiveness“.
“Italy supports, and will continue to support, an ambitious path to reduce emissions,” the prime minister said then, Giorgia Meloni.
“However, we believe that the best way to fail to achieve this goal is to continue adopting an ideological – and therefore unreasonable – approach that sets unsustainable and unattainable goals, which damages our economic and industrial fabric, weakens European nations and risks permanently compromising the EU’s own credibility,” he added.
“We want to abandon this ideological approach that has characterized the Green Deal periodto adopt in its place a serious pragmatism, firmly anchored in the principle of technological neutrality,” claims Meloni, who has emerged as a spokesperson for the most skeptical countries.
In this sense, European leaders have asked Brussels to “continue to develop the favorable conditions necessary to help European industry and citizens in achieving the intermediate goal for 2040.”
Looking ahead to this Tuesday’s meeting, Poland, Italy and France still have doubts and could gather a blocking minority with the support of a small country.
The strategy of the Danish presidency to try to close an agreement involves expand the percentage of international CO2 credits (probably up to 5%) and advance its use (perhaps from 2031).
Furthermore, Copenhagen could further strengthen the review clause, which in its current wording obliges the Community Executive to review the implementation of the intermediate emissions reduction objectives every two years and present, if it considers it necessary, legislative proposals to modify them.
The final ingredient that could unblock the agreement is the commitment on the part of the Commission to also introduce mechanisms of flexibility both in the ban on combustion cars from 2035 (which must be reviewed before the end of the year) as in the new emissions trading system.
Approval of the 90% emissions reduction target by 2040 only requires a qualified majority of the Member States, but the contribution that the EU must send to COP30 by 2035 requires unanimity that at the moment seems impossible to achieve in the Environment Council.
Therefore, it is most likely that this Tuesday’s meeting will not result in a single figure, but rather a range of options similar to the one already agreed upon in September, which would be between 66.25% and 72.5%.