At their Council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 14 October, the environment and climate ministers of the 27 EU Member States had difficulty in adopting a common position ahead of COP29, scheduled to take place in Baku (Azerbaijan) from 11 to 22 November.
And for good reason: the development period for this “ambitious but balanced text”, in the words of the Hungarian Minister of State, Anikó Raisz, came up against ongoing disagreements over the role of nuclear power in the global energy transition, the targets for reducing emissions by 2040, and climate financing.
With regard to nuclear power, the French minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, firmly supported including it in the European energy mix. She maintained that nuclear power is “crucial to guarantee controllable energy” and to complement intermittent renewable energies such as wind and solar power. In her view, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 necessitates “building on what was achieved” at COP28, where nuclear power was already recognised as a low-carbon energy source.
However, not everybody agrees with this vision. The Austrian Federal Minister for Climate, Leonore Gewessler, remained categorically opposed to this approach. She advocated a rapid abandonment of fossil fuels in favour of instead using renewable energies, which she sees as the only future route for reducing emissions. Ms Gewessler stated that “it is imperative to focus on energy sources that are safe, inexpensive and capable of meeting the challenges posed by climate change”, noting that nuclear power does not meet these criteria.
According to her German counterpart, Anna Lührmann, nuclear power is neither as safe nor as sustainable as renewable energies, not least because of the constraints associated with nuclear waste management and safety concerns.
Countries such as Poland and Romania were more closely aligned to the French position, supporting technological flexibility that takes account of their national situations.
2040 target. Sweden, like Germany and Austria, has campaigned for the European Union to adopt a reduction target of 90% by 2040, and to do so right now. The Swedish minister, Romina Pourmokhtari, was of the opinion that such a commitment was crucial for the EU to show leadership.
However, this proposal was met with resistance from Hungary, whose minister, Anikó Raisz, stressed that it was “premature to set such targets without an official proposal from the European Commission”. Ms Raisz called for caution, noting that countries with a large industrial sector must also take into account the economic implications of such resolutions.
Financing. With the adoption of new quantified targets for global climate finance as one of the objectives of COP29, the EU reiterated its commitment to mobilise $100 billion per year for climate finance until 2025 at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on 8 October (see EUROPE 13499/23).
France and Germany, in particular, supported this initiative, advocating transparency and aid for vulnerable countries. Poland, for its part, wanted to preserve the EU’s economic competitiveness while broadening the base of contributors to spread the effort more evenly. Read the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/dw4 (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)