Europe Introduces Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Half by 2030

The European Commission has intro­duced its Fit-for-55 pack­age, 13 pro­pos­als for leg­isla­tive actions and tools to reduce car­bon emis­sions within the 27 mem­ber states.

By 2030, Brussels hopes to reduce European Union green­house gas emis­sions by 55 per­cent com­pared to the record-high lev­els recorded in 1990.

According to the European Commission, achiev­ing the goal of the new car­bon emis­sions pack­age is cru­cial to deliver the European Green Deal and for the con­ti­nent to become cli­mate-neu­tral by 2050.

A new set of rules and a review of exist­ing reg­u­la­tions will ​“enable the nec­es­sary accel­er­a­tion of green­house gas emis­sion reduc­tions in the next decade,” the com­mis­sion wrote. The com­mis­sion’s pro­pos­als will now be dis­cussed by the E.U. mem­ber states and will come into force after it is approved by the European Parliament.

The Fit-for-55 pack­age includes expand­ing emis­sions trad­ing to new sec­tors, increas­ing the use of renew­able energy to 40 per­cent by 2030, push­ing for more energy effi­ciency and a faster roll-out of low emis­sion trans­port infra­struc­ture.

It also includes new tax­a­tion poli­cies that will encour­age the tran­si­tion of the power gen­er­a­tion indus­try and heavy indus­tries toward cleaner ener­gies, new mea­sures to pre­vent car­bon leak­age, and tools to pre­serve and grow nat­ural car­bon sinks.

Along with the Fit-for-55 pack­age, Brussels also plans to ear­mark €144 bil­lion from the 2025 to 2032 bud­get for a Social Climate Fund, which will help Europeans upgrade their homes to make them more energy-effi­cient.

Frans Timmermans, the vice-pres­i­dent of the com­mis­sion in charge of the Green Deal, intro­duced the new pack­age as the most ambi­tious ever.

“We are going to ask a lot of our cit­i­zens,” he said. ​“We are also going to ask a lot of our indus­tries, but we do it for a good cause. We do it to give human­ity a fight­ing chance.”

Along with low­er­ing its own emis­sions, which accord­ing to some esti­mates, account for 6.4 per­cent of total global emis­sions, the com­mis­sion hopes that its new com­mit­ment will affect the plans of the other major global pol­luters.

“Europe is the first con­ti­nent to declare that it will be cli­mate neu­tral in 2050, and now we are the very first ones to put a con­crete road map on the table,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s pres­i­dent.

Given the objec­tions raised both by major indus­try asso­ci­a­tions and by envi­ron­men­tal­ists in recent weeks about the incom­ing pro­posal, many observers believe that sev­eral months of tough nego­ti­a­tions can be expected.

“Focusing only on reduc­ing the emis­sions might be mis­lead­ing because to counter cli­mate change, there are sev­eral actions that could be put in place – for instance, on water waste, land con­sump­tion, acid­i­fi­ca­tion and so on,” Andrea Muratore, InsideOver magazine’s geopo­lit­i­cal ana­lyst, told Olive Oil Times

“Still, the com­mis­sion might have found a way to put its polit­i­cal cap on the cen­tral role the European Union has assumed in the fight against cli­mate change as the United States lags behind while China and India are increas­ing their emis­sions,” Muratore added.

According to Timmermans, the leg­is­la­tion will help cre­ate a new econ­omy, the impact of which is hard to fore­see. He argued that the quick decline of renew­able energy prices is expected to fuel this new green econ­omy, which will require new skills and will be the dri­ver of growth and trade.

“The other mes­sage that comes from the com­mis­sion pro­posal is that invest­ing in alter­na­tive energy and in the activ­i­ties needed to fight cli­mate change mean cre­at­ing a whole new sec­tor, a new mar­ket, with new skills and new oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Muratore added. ​“As some mem­ber states are well ahead on this, the new pro­posal might finally bring a new coor­di­nated effort to the E.U.”

Farmers will play a piv­otal role in the new sce­nario, accord­ing to Timmermans.

“I think we need to use the reformed agri­cul­tural pol­icy to put our farm­ers in a posi­tion to be part of that,” he said.

Timmermans added that the new Common Agricultural Policy helps achieve this goal by incen­tiviz­ing sus­tain­abil­ity and tra­di­tional pro­duc­tion prac­tices.

Key to the new pack­age is the review of the exist­ing E.U. Emissions Trading System (ETS), which caps the amount of car­bon emis­sions that may be pro­duced and makes indus­tries pay for those emis­sions.

According to the com­mis­sion, the ETS has con­tributed to a 43 per­cent reduc­tion in emis­sions from power gen­er­a­tion and energy-inten­sive indus­tries in the last 16 years. The new ETS will reduce the car­bon cap even more and accel­er­ate its yearly reduc­tion.

However, this plan has been widely crit­i­cized by sev­eral cen­tral European coun­tries, whose heavy indus­tries rely on fos­sil fuels. To help them tran­si­tion to a new energy frame, the Fit-for-55 pack­age pro­vides options for refi­nanc­ing and car­bon cred­its.

A sep­a­rate ETS will also be intro­duced to cover emis­sions from trans­port and build­ings. This is expected to have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the avi­a­tion indus­try and ship­ping, which will be included in the scheme for the first time.

The com­mis­sion has also asked that new cars pro­duced in the E.U. are emis­sion-free from 2035 onward, which has so far been opposed by the continent’s car man­u­fac­tur­ers. The Fit-for-55 pack­age envi­sions a mas­sive trans­for­ma­tion in pri­vate trans­port that will require the instal­la­tion of charg­ing and fuel­ing points through­out the con­ti­nent for elec­tric vehi­cles.

The rev­enues com­ing to mem­ber states from emis­sions trad­ing will have to be entirely spent on cli­mate-friendly and energy-related projects, with a focus on new trans­porta­tion, vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and small busi­nesses.

In order to pre­vent European busi­nesses from mov­ing emis­sion-cre­at­ing activ­i­ties out of Europe, the com­mis­sion said it will ​“put a car­bon price on imports of a tar­geted selec­tion of prod­ucts to ensure that ambi­tious cli­mate action in Europe does not lead to car­bon leak­age.”

“[This] will ensure that European emis­sion reduc­tions con­tribute to a global emis­sions decline, instead of push­ing car­bon-inten­sive pro­duc­tion out­side Europe,” the com­mis­sion added. ​“It also aims to encour­age indus­try out­side the EU and our inter­na­tional part­ners to take steps in the same direc­tion.”

According to Muratore, the commission’s plan ​“is prag­matic because the car­bon tar­iff is set to be applied from 2030 onward. That means that the whole pro­duc­tion chain has the time to adapt.”

• European Commission