More than half of European countries can support the EU's objective of climate neutrality by 2050, two days before the European Council on 20 and 21 June, which must discuss the issue again, as decided by European leaders in March, because they could not agree on a date to be set for achieving this long-term objective (see EUROPE 12220/4).
For the time being, the draft European Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 which will be discussed by European leaders still contains nothing of the kind (see EUROPE 12275/8, 12271/1).
While 8 Member States had advocated such an objective on the eve of the informal summit in Sibiu, dedicated to the future of the Twenty-Seven (see EUROPE 12250/2), their number had doubled by 17 June.
Seventeen out of twenty-eight Member States officially support this long-term objective for almost all of them (France, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, but also Cyprus, Finland, which has committed itself to 2035, Germany, which has confirmed its agreement according to the preparations of the European Council, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, which is not covered by the strategic agenda, but which has committed itself on 12 June to achieving zero net emissions by 2050). The rallying of the countries of the South (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta) was achieved through the signing of the ‘Valletta Declaration’ on 14 June.
Austria is not enthusiastic, but has never opposed it. Other countries have yet to take a clear position. In contrast, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria remain firmly opposed to any objective not included in the Paris Climate Agreement, which only requires that the balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals be achieved in the second half of the century.
This European summit is one of the last opportunities for European leaders to agree before the World Climate Summit, convened in September in New York by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to try to raise the level of commitments on the table. These would lead to an increase in the average temperature of more than 3 degrees C.
In a letter to the European Council on 23 May, Mr Guterres said he was counting on the EU to show leadership and even hoped that the EU would raise its 2030 target to a 55% reduction in emissions (instead of at least 40% compared to 1990).
Resumption of international negotiations in Bonn. This meeting of European leaders will coincide with the international meeting of experts in Bonn, where climate negotiations have just resumed for ten days on Monday 17 June to prepare for COP 25 (Santiago de Chile in December).
The objective of the Bonn session is to exchange views on progress made in implementing the objectives of the Paris Agreement, in order to prepare the ground for raising ambitions for greenhouse gas emission reductions, to accelerate efforts to promote resilience to climate change and to ensure that climate policy is based on science and the best available technologies.
Negotiators will also begin to examine the effectiveness of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage. In Bonn, the European Union will co-chair a conference on 25 June on the involvement of society as a whole in long-term climate strategies. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)