The French Presidency of the EU Council presented a new compromise text on the revision of the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry Regulation (LULUCF) on 10 June.
The aim is to get the EU Environment Ministers to agree on a common position (general approach) on this text at their meeting on 28 June in Luxembourg, after the European Parliament has adopted its position in plenary (see EUROPE 12967/5).
Compared to the European Commission’s proposal, the compromise text of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU proposes to keep the overall EU target of 310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of net removals in the LULUCF sector in 2030 unchanged, which was widely supported by delegations.
In terms of national targets, the compromise text also confirms the distribution of targets as proposed by the Commission.
To address EU countries’ concerns about the interannual variability inherent in the LULUCF sector and the predictability of the targets, the Presidency is proposing significant changes in relation to the compliance process to help Member States achieve their respective targets while maintaining their level of ambition.
It is therefore proposed to set a five-year budget for emissions or net removals over the period 2026-2030, replacing the binding annual targets for the years 2026 to 2029, while retaining the obligation to meet national targets for the year 2030.
In response to delegations’ concerns about the difficulty of achieving their objectives due to uncontrollable phenomena, the Presidency proposes to create an additional flexibility related to climate impacts and organic soils on the basis of objective and measurable criteria and indicators.
Link to the compromise text: https://aeur.eu/f/233 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur and Damien Génicot)