While the climate will be one of the main issues to be discussed by EU heads of State and government at the European summit on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October, the question of the EU’s new target for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 could be the subject of further discussion among the EU27, according to the draft summit conclusions of 5 October.
“The European Council [...] will return to the issue at its meeting in December [10 and 11]”, thus indicates the document obtained by EUROPE, while recalling the recent proposal of the European Commission to raise the target to a reduction of at least 55% by 2030, as opposed to the current 40% (see EUROPE 12561/5).
A tight schedule
If these provisional conclusions are confirmed at next week’s Summit, the adoption of the ‘Climate Law’ (see EUROPE 12439/2) could be seriously delayed as inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogues’) on this dossier can only start once the EU Council’s position has been defined.
However, like the European Parliament and the European Commission, the German Presidency of the EU Council has declared that it wishes to conclude the issue of the 2030 climate target (and ideally the entire ‘Climate Law’) during its Presidency, thus before the end of the year.
In this way, the 2030 target raised to 55%, as a new EU ‘nationally determined contribution’ (NDC), could be reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before 2021, as required by the Paris Agreement.
However, at the last informal meeting of EU Environment Ministers (see EUROPE 12572/10), German Minister Svenja Schulze was unable to specify whether the final decision on the 2030 objective would be taken on 23 October at the next Environment Council of the EU, or in December, at the EU summit.
Qualified majority against unanimity
In addition to the question of the timetable, the question of the decision-making procedure for the new 2030 objective is also raised.
If the final decision on the 2030 objective is taken by the Heads of State or Government, the unanimity rule will apply, making it possible for one of the Member States opposed to a reduction of at least 55% by 2030 to veto it.
However, for MEP Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France), one of the main interests of the ‘Climate Law’ is to set climate targets by qualified majority, under the co-decision procedure, and thus avoid the problem of unanimity (see EUROPE 12438/3). The Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment therefore called on the German Presidency to redouble its efforts to ensure that the final decision is taken by the environment ministers at the end of October.
Commission puts pressure on Member States
This echoes the statements of the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Inter-institutional Relations, Maroš Šefčovič.
“Our climate goals will be at the heart of the next European Council. This Parliament and the European Heads of State and Government have agreed on making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. For that we need to speed up”, said the Vice-President in a debate with Parliament on Tuesday 6 October. He was speaking on behalf of Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission, who is currently in quarantine.
He added: “We will put pressure on Heads of State to be united on the same ambition before the end of year”.
Stressing that a reduction target of -55% is “an ambitious goal, but it is in our reach”, where “the benefits are bigger than the costs”, as shown by the Commission’s impact assessment (see EUROPE 12562/1), Mr Šefčovič recalled that the financial resources were there, with “more than 600 billion euros made available ” by the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 and the European Recovery Plan “for climate and green investment”.
Challenging MEPs a few hours before their vote on amendments to the ‘Climate Law’ (see separate news), the Commission Vice-President called on them to “unite over the target of at least a 55% reduction in emissions compared to 1990”.
This, in the name of the commitments already made, that “science tells us we have no choice”, “the Paris Agreement requires it”, but also of the EU’s economic interests and the expectations of businesses and the vast majority of citizens.
Mr Šefčovič also pointed out that the EU contributes less than 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and therefore cannot meet the challenge of climate change alone.
In this regard, he welcomed China’s recent commitment to aim for climate neutrality by 2060 and South Africa’s commitment to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. “These are messages we want to hear and we need more of them!”, he exclaimed.
See the draft conclusions for the European Summit of 15 and 16 October: https://bit.ly/2Gw7Lgj (Original version in French by Damien Genicot and Aminata Niang)