The European Parliament supports the EU to achieve climate neutrality in 2050

The plenary session of the European Parliament (EP) on Thursday gave the green light to the law with which the European Union (EU) commits to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, that is, not to release more greenhouse gases than it can absorb, and to reduce its net CO emissions.₂ at least 55% in 2030 compared to 1990.

The legislation received 442 votes in favour and 203 against, while 51 MEPs abstained.

In favour of the text, above all, the members of the European People’s Party, the Social Democratic Group and the liberal Renew Europe voted, while almost all the Greens and the left rejected it as unambitious.

Most of the far-right Identity and Democracy and a section of the European Conservatives and Reformists, including the three Vox MPs, also voted against the law.

Another section of the European Conservatives and Reformists abstained.

With today’s vote, the European Parliament gives the green light to the agreement on the European climate law that the co-legislators of the EU, Parliament and Council, which brings together the member states, achieved in April.

The text does not set binding targets per country, but the EU assumes that reduction of at least 55% by 2030 collectively, a toll to achieve the approval of eastern coal countries such as Poland, Hungary or Slovakia.

The achievement of this legal commitment, which serves as the foundation for the European Green Deal, must now be articulated through some 50 legislative revisions that cover the CO emissions market.₂ to the promotion of electric vehicles, green taxation or the development of technologies such as clean hydrogen and new more sustainable materials.

The European Commission plans to present on 14th July a legislative package with initiatives to achieve that 55% reduction over the next decade.

The European Parliament said in a statement that the decrease by 2030 could reach 57% thanks to the next proposal of the European Commission on the regulation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and removals resulting from land use, land-use change and forestry, which will raise carbon sinks, that is, the ability to absorb CO2 by the natural environment, such as trees.

The text, which introduces the obligation to set an intermediate target in 2040, also provides for the creation of a European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change composed of 15 high-level scientific experts, which will be responsible, among other points, for checking that there is coherence between the climate objectives and the policies deployed to achieve them.

In addition, that Council shall publish a projected Union indicative budget on greenhouse gases for the period 2030-2050 which shall define the total indicative volume of net emissions that the EU is deemed to be able to emit in that period without jeopardising its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

That international climate pact signed in 2015 aims to limit the increase in global average temperature at the end of the century below 2 degrees Celsius with respect to pre-industrial levels, with the recommendation not to exceed 1.5 degrees.

The Secretary of State for the European Union of Portugal, Ana Paula Zacarias, whose country holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, indicated in the parliamentary debate that after the approval of the European Parliament, the institution that brings together the countries will act quickly to adopt the regulation before the end of the month.

Source: EuroEFE