The EU will reduce CO ₂ emissions by 55% in 2030

I leap forward in the fight against climate change. The European Union has committed to reducing _CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030, an indispensable step towards achieving climate neutrality on the continent by 2050.

The decision has not been easy. A long night of negotiations between the heads of government of the European Union in Brussels has allowed consensus to be reached at 8 am on Friday. “Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote on his Twitter account when announcing the pact.

“A great way to celebrate the first anniversary of our Green Deal. Europe will reduce its emissions by at least 55% by 2030. It puts us on the path to climate neutrality by 2050,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

It has been achieved after a practically blank night of the heads of government, focused largely on overcoming the resistance of Poland, a country that, with 80% of its electricity produced by coal, is the one that will have to make more efforts to reduce _CO2 emissions.

Poland demanded to know with certainty how much of the European funds will correspond to it to face this energy transition, including the resources provided by the future carbon mechanism at the border.

However, most countries have resisted specifying up to this level arguing that it is still too early to be able to specify even the distribution that Warsaw requested. What is recognized is that imbalances will have to be addressed. “The new targets for 2030 must be achieved in a way that preserves the EU’s competitiveness and takes into account the different starting points of member states, their specific national circumstances and the potential for emission reductions… as well as the efforts made,” say the conclusions of the summit.

Heads of government are also given a role in defining the policy guidelines to be followed to reach the 55% target. In addition, the issue will be discussed at a summit next semester, according to European sources.

The unblocking of the recovery fund and the budgets for the coming years achieved yesterday, seemed to pave the way to take this step in the 2030 objective, because it made available the economic items to help all countries, and Poland in particular, to carry out this transition. However, the tussle led heads of government to spend the entire night largely focused on this commitment.

Although the decision is far from the 65% requested by NGOs, the agreement represents an important advance for the community bloc, which has turned the energy transition and the decarbonization policy a flag of its economic, technological and diplomatic agenda.

The European Union will be able to present its renewed climate ambitions this Saturday at the virtual climate summit of the United Nations that, in the absence of an official appointment in 2020 due to the pandemic, will be one of the great events of the year.

Spanish Vice President For The Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, admitted on Thursday that the EU negotiation has been complicated. “The critical point was how to ensure the compliance of each country without it imposing conditions, and favor the mechanisms (of aid) to accompany that compliance.”

Greenpeace, for its part, considers this agreement insufficient and calls for raising the emissions cut to 65%. “The happiness I felt in Paris five years ago is now overshadowed by the reality of the climate emergency and the completely inadequate response of governments. Instead of supporting a green and fair recovery and making commitments in line with the 1.5°C target of the Paris agreement, we are witnessing continued support for the fossil fuel industry that has caused the climate emergency in the first place,” said Greenpeace International’s executive director. Jennifer Morgan.

This organization criticizes that the accounting system allows discounting emissions through natural carbon sinks (such as forests), “so the real reduction would be 50.5% for sectors such as energy, transport and industrial agriculture”, since it is based on the basis that sinks would supposedly compensate for the rest, as Explained by Tatiana Nuño, of Greenpeace, to this newspaper

Insufficient for Greenpeace

The Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, also refutes the criticism of several environmental organizations (Greenpace, Ecologists in Action and Intermon), which demand a greater cut in emissions from Spain, since the integrated national energy and climate plan for Spain 2021-2030 proposes a cut of 23% compared to 1990.

Ribera explains that Spain is “in perfect condition” to assume the new objectives derived from the EU’s goals (-55% by 2030 compared to 1990). “The approved Spanish targets (in the integrated energy and climate plan) are compatible with the -55% target,” he says. It also details how Spain has assumed in its energy and climate plan for 2030 quantified objectives (on emission reduction, efficiency and renewables) more ambitious than those foreseen in the current European regulation.

However, he admits that paths will continue to be sought to accelerate decarbonization. “But we must not be demagogic and what would not be responsible on the part of the government is to say: ‘we are going to multiply by three the effort of Germany even if this means the closure of my industry and the prohibition of mobility’. That doesn’t lead anywhere,” he emphasizes.

Minister Ribera maintains that the Spanish energy and climate plan “is compatible” with the European goal of -55%

When addressing the policies of her government, the Spanish minister points out, in a meeting with journalists from the APIA association, that there is reason for optimism. “In just over two and a half years, we have closed 90% of the coal thermal plants”, an industrial reconversion that he considered “important” and agreed, taking into account that in 2017, the PP government “planned to impose” the decision to keep this plants open.

Source: The Vanguard