At the end of a debate among environment ministers during a special sectoral Council meeting on amending the EU’s ‘Climate Law’ held on Thursday, 18 September, Denmark’s Minister for Climate Lars Aagaard, who presided over the discussions, said that he believed an agreement was not far off. Nevertheless, opinions still diverged.
Initially, the purpose of the ‘special’ meeting was to adopt a general approach on the European Commission’s proposal for an intermediate climate target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions 90% by 2040, coupled with flexibilities (see EUROPE 13672/2).
However, a succession of Member States called for the subject to be broached at the Heads of State or Government level during the European Summit on 23 and 24 October (see EUROPE 13701/18).
Tight schedule before COP30. During their exchange at the ministerial level, several countries – such as Spain, Luxembourg, and Lithuania – did, however, claim to be ready to adopt the text that day (18 September).
As a result, some called for another meeting of the Environment Council to be scheduled as soon as possible after the European Summit in October so that the 2040 target could be adopted before COP30 starts on 10 November.
An agreement on the EU’s 2040 target will make it possible to directly calculate the EU’s 2035 target in its ‘nationally determined contribution’ (NDC), which is expected by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In the meantime, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU has proposed presenting a temporary ‘statement of intent’, since the EU will not be able to make the end-of-September deadline for presenting its definitive NDC (see other news).
The 90% reduction target is still under discussion. Poland was one of the first countries to request that the text be sent back to the European Council. Poland’s Secretary of State for Climate Krzysztof Bolesta thus thanked the presidency for not “pressing for a vote on a general approach” during the Environment Council meeting.
He also added that the 90% target remained “very difficult” to achieve and, like others, insisted that an impact assessment be conducted at the Member State level.
Other countries, such as Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, were also sceptical about this objective, whereas Member States such as Germany, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, and the Netherlands explicitly supported the 90% target, with or without certain conditions.
Differences on flexibilities and ‘enabling conditions’. It is precisely the ‘enabling’ conditions and flexibilities introduced by the European Commission that are still at the centre of the debate and that European leaders will need to address in detail.
On the subject of using international carbon credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement – which would allow Member States to count certain emission reductions achieved outside the EU – a number of countries have expressed that they are in favour of limited use.
Croatia, Finland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands said they are in favour of limited use of such credits that is capped at 3% starting in 2036 and excluded from the ETS. Luxembourg, Ireland, Cyprus, and Germany also supported limited use.
Nevertheless, certain delegations, like Latvia, expressed reservations and prefer not to proceed. Slovakia has also voiced its doubts, mentioning a potential price of €250 per tonne that, according to the country, “will not work”.
On the contrary, Poland supported a 10% cap starting in 2035 and for the sectors also covered by the ETS – advocating that European competitiveness be protected and the pace of decarbonisation be controlled.
For its part, Germany considered, more broadly, that flexibilities should remain limited and supervised, and it supported an “effective” revision clause for the 2040 proposal, as initially proposed by the Czech Republic.
France – which especially did not want to pit climate ambitions against industrial competitiveness – called for conditions to be created so that European industry would be able to support the 2040 target.
As for the ‘enabling conditions’, Belgium reiterated that any new objectives had to go hand in hand with a set of guarantees both on purchasing power and employment and on affordable and competitive energy. Bulgaria called for more solidarity and greater leeway among sectors – for example, by making compensations in transport, agriculture, and industry.
Furthermore, a majority of Member States did not want the contribution of the LULUCF sector and natural sinks (see EUROPE 13686/5) in view of the 2040 target to be overestimated. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys and Nithya Paquiry)