The EU will have to reduce its emissions by 86% by 2040 if it wants to be carbon neutral a decade later

The EU will need to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 86% by 2040 compared to 1990, through the expansion of renewable energy and the electrification of electricity demand, in order to achieve climate neutrality a decade later, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK, for its German acronym).

The institution has carried out a study, which was published this Thursday in the journal Nature, on the milestones in energy, transport, heating and industrial transition by 2040 that the EU must achieve if it wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 at a minimum cost. According to the researchers, the EU’s climate transition would require an 86% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 compared to 1990, which is in line with the European Commission’s proposal in this area. In fact, the EU’s climate advisory committee had recommended a reduction of 90 to 95%, based, among other data, on the preliminary results of the scenarios developed for this report. The Commission subsequently proposed a reduction target of 90%, while allowing 5% of them to come from third countries.

“Our results now show that the resulting internal EU reductions of 85% are in line with a cost-effective transition to climate neutrality,” said PIK researcher and report co-author Robert Pietzcker.

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