The European Union wants an agreement for an emissions reduction target between now and 2040 that allows you to maintain your leadership in the global fight against climate change in the COP30 climate summit which begins next November 10 in Brazil, but differences on how to achieve it maintain negotiation blocked.
After ten in the morning this Tuesday, the environment ministers of the Twenty-seven They have sat down at the table in Brussels. The goal: leave the meeting with a emissions reduction target for 2040 that brings the bloc closer to climate neutrality and a commitment on its contribution to the Paris agreement ahead of COP30. At press time, none had been possible.
A vast majority of countries support reducing emissions by 90%; The discrepancy is how to do it.
During the first two hours, one by one, The ministers have expressed their position. A vast majority of countries have supported reduce emissions by 90% for the next fifteen years. But the devil is in the details. It is in the conditions necessary to achieve it and how to evaluate the fulfillment of the objective on which the Twenty-seven do not agree.
Around noon, they got up from the table. On the shoulders of the Danes, who hold the rotating presidency of the Council, was look for an impossible agreement that includes all the requests and achieve sufficient support. The ministers met at five in the afternoon to discuss the new proposal.
The proposal
Before the meeting, the Danes They had put a proposal on the table which maintained the 90% target but introduced some safeguards. Among other things, allowed to adapt it If, for example, the emissions absorption capacity of natural sinks —the forests, the wetlands…— was smaller than expected.
It also opened the door to create a review clause in case new technologies appear or scientific evidence. “This would allow us take corrective measuresincluding the possibility of reviewing the 2040 target, if necessary,” explained the Danish climate minister, Boot Aagaard, at the beginning of the meeting.
In other sensitive issues for some countries, such as What percentage of emissions can be outsourced to third parties? and from when, everything was to be decided. Furthermore, Aagaard has warned that some of the requests from the countries – which they affect, for example, other legislations—cannot be addressed here.
“I know we are in a moment of political insecuritywhich sometimes seems as if the tectonic plates are moving under our feet,” said the Dane. “But today, we must set a clear direction for Europe for the coming years,” Aagaard assured. A direction that, for the moment, remains to be defined.
The differences
The ministers faced an extremely complex negotiation. The 2040 emissions reduction target is legally translated into an amendment. That amendment requires ua large majority in the Council, where the ministers are represented, which must then negotiate with the European Parliament. The commitment for COP30however, it is remembered by unanimity.
In this first round of public interventions prior to the negotiation in which all countries have expressed their position, the majority wants an agreement. But everyone has a but. Italy wants the mechanism to review the contribution of natural sinks to reduce emissions is very specific.
To Spain, The red line is that the goal for 2040 remains 90%. For Hungary, that goal is “too ambitious and it is disconnected from reality,” said the Secretary of State for the Environment, Anikó Raisz. While Poland considers “an absolute necessity” a mechanism that allows modify the objectivethe Secretary of State also said, Krzysztof Bolesta.
The Slovenians They are not opposed to having a review clausebut yes, it serves to modify the objective, instead of taking new measures to ensure that it is achieved. For others, like Czech Republic or Lithuania, What is missing is solidarity and taking into account that the situation of each country, the necessary efforts, are not the same.
France refuses to accept any agreement in which the maximum international emissions credits are below 5%. While Poland, which has opposed the text that the Danes have put on the table, has asked to reach 10%, and Finland refuses to move a point of 3% proposed by the European Commission.
For its part, Sweden insists that whatever law emerges from the negotiations must give guarantees and certainty to companies. “Deviating from our path towards climate neutrality has direct consequences for loss of investments and competitiveness in Europe,” said Minister Romina Pourmokhtari.
For a large majority of ministers, There can be no commitment to comply with the Paris Agreement but rather a goal for 2040. In this context, the political dynamics in which every vote counts It makes a twenty-seven negotiation that, at the close of this edition, continued much more complex.
Subscribe to continue reading
