The European Commission’s famous ‘climate law’ includes the possibility of revising the post-2030 climate targets via delegated acts while setting the objective of climate neutrality by 2050 in stone, reveals the draft regulation obtained by EUROPE on Monday 2 March.
“The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts [...] to supplement this Regulation by setting out a trajectory at Union level to achieve the climate-neutrality objective”, the document leaked 2 days before its official presentation by the Commission.
For Klaus Röhrig, a member of the NGO CAN Europe, this would strengthen the Commission’s power to set European climate objectives, since delegated acts can only be rejected if an objection has been expressed by the European Parliament or the EU Council within 2 months of their notification. But for this to happen, the Regulation – the ‘climate law’ – must be adopted by the co-legislators (European Parliament and Council of the European Union), which is far from guaranteed.
The draft Regulation further provides for the trajectory to reach the climate neutrality objective “shall start from the Union’s 2030 target” and will have to take into account “the best available and most recent scientific evidence, including the latest reports of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]”.
Hence, the climate law does not in fact contain any concrete measures or targets before 2030. An approach that the NGOs CAN Europe, Greenpeace and WWF criticise. For them, climate change requires immediate action.
“The Commission is kicking the can to 2030. Scientists warn that by then, the window to stop total climate change will be closed”, said Greenpeace member Sebastian Mang.
While the Commission could raise the 2030 target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from -40% to -50% or even -55% (compared to 1990 levels), depending on the results of an impact assessment to be published in September, these NGOs are calling for a more ambitious target of -65%.
Regarding the monitoring of measures taken by Member States, the ‘climate law’ states that by 30 September 2023 at the latest, and every 5 years thereafter, the Commission will assess Member States’ progress towards achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
Like the Greens/EFA group (see EUROPE 12383/7) in the European Parliament, NGOs are calling for an independent body of climate scientists and other experts to assess – and possibly revise – EU targets and policies. A provision that is not included in the ‘climate law’.
See the ‘climate law’: http://bit.ly/3amBFx4 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)