European environment ministers, when they meet in Luxembourg on 13 October, will attempt to come to a political agreement on the draft EU regulation establishing the sharing of effort among the member states for reducing CO2 emissions from those sectors not covered by the EU emissions trading system (ETS), a European source confirmed on Tuesday 3 October.
The non-ETS sectors of transport, agriculture, buildings and waste are to reduce their emissions by 30% during the period from 2021 to 2030, compared with 2005, as their contribution to achieving the EU’s climate target of an emissions reduction of at least 40% by 2030. The ambassadors to the EU of the 28 member states, meeting in the committee of permanent representatives on 27 September, made clear their desire to forge ahead on the basis of the latest draft compromise from the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU. “They felt that the Environment Council would be the ideal place to come to a decision on the remaining political questions. The mood is positive. There was widespread support for trying to move towards a general approach. They feel it is very important before COP 23”, a source told EUROPE.
The safety reserve will be at the heart of the debate. The priority will be to come to agreement on the upper limit for this reserve and how it is to operate: what will be the access conditions and from what date will it be possible to use this additional reserve? The reserve offers extra flexibility designed to reassure the less well-off countries of the EU which have already made significant efforts to achieve their 2030 targets without expecting to be able to reach them. A quantity of 100 million tonnes of CO2, proposed as an indicative maximum volume, and the year 2032 for the date of use remain to be discussed. It is on this point that the Presidency will focus discussions.
The question of the starting point for emissions reduction has, since the start of discussions, been a problem for some member states (see EUROPE 11811) as well as for the European Parliament, which agreed its position on 14 June (see EUROPE 11808), and could be raised by some ministers.
CAN EUROPE criticises member states’ hypocrisy. The NGO CAN Europe (Climate Action Network) is disappointed by the draft text, which will be put as it stands to the Environment Council. It believes the text shows a lack of ambition on the part of the member states and it criticises their hypocrisy.
“The latest text clearly shows that EU member states play a two-faced game on climate: they claim commitment to the Paris Agreement, but avoid real climate action at home”, railed Caroline Westblom, CAN Europe’s EU Climate & Energy Policy Coordinator.
Stating that a 30% reduction by 2030 is too low to achieve the long-term objective of the Paris Agreement of keeping the global average temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the NGO reproaches the member states for failing to increase their level of ambition. It also criticises them for failing to do anything to correct the starting point for reductions and for increasing the loopholes that will allow countries to reduce their efforts by using Lulucf credits or surplus ETS allowances. This multitude of loopholes “would lower an already weak -30% target to a mere -23%”, CAN Europe complains. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)