Inter-institutional negotiations are continuing on the draft regulation establishing how the greenhouse gas emissions reductions effort is to be shared among the 28 member states in sectors not covered by the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) – transport, agriculture, buildings and waste – and the related but separate regulation, known as the Lulucf regulation, on the contribution of agriculture and forestry to tackling climate change (see EUROPE 11898).
The aim of the Presidency and Parliament negotiators, assisted by the Commission, on these two legislative texts that are of crucial importance for EU climate policy and implementation of the Paris Agreement is to conclude the trialogue negotiations before the Environment Council of 19 December. The goal is to conclude non-ETS effort sharing talks in Strasbourg on the evening of Wednesday 13 December and the Lulucf regulation negotiations on the morning of 14 December.
“We’re going to try to do it”, an EU source said on Friday 24 November. For both of these texts, the forthcoming trialogues will focus on the major political issues that remain outstanding.
In these sectors which are responsible for 60% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, the draft regulations target a 30% reduction by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, as their contribution to achieving the EU’s climate target – a reduction of at least 40% in its emissions by 2030, compared with 1990.
Lulucf regulation. The ambassadors of the 28 member states to the EU, meeting in Brussels on Friday 24 November, were updated on the outcome of the second very lengthy trialogue in the evening of 22 November: progress was made on technical issues but the negotiators have only just begun to discuss the more political matters, such as: governance, the 10-year 360-million tonne CO2 equivalent offset mechanism (10% of the average annual carbon sink of the EU over the whole period) that could be used by all the member states so long as their forests continue to act as carbon sinks – a point on which the Council was able to explain its methodology; accounting rules for agriculture and forestry emissions and absorption, with Parliament calling for the management of wetlands to be taken into account.
Non-ETS effort sharing. At the third trialogue on the evening of Tuesday 21 November, negotiators held an in-depth discussion on the technical measures. Talks will continue in two or three technical meetings before 13 December trialogue. The political issues to be settled on that day relate to: - the flexibility initially contained in the text (the Lulucf flexibility and the one-off ETS flexibility); - the compliance check (Council wants this check to be every five years, Parliament every two years); - the security reserve, a new flexibility measure of 115 million tonnes of CO2; - the starting point for the emissions reduction trajectory (Council wants 2020, Parliament 2018). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)