The European Union will not have a climate target to present at the United Nations next week after EU environment ministers failed to reach an agreement in time.
Australia and China are expected to announce their 2035 emission reduction targets at the Climate Ambition Summit in New York next Wednesday.
It’s a bad look for the European Union that likes to project itself as being at the forefront of efforts to tackle climate change.
“Every delay and every fraction of a degree will cost people their lives, health, homes and livelihoods, but the EU is more concerned with making the continent ‘competitive’ than keeping it livable”, said Thomas Gelin from Greenpeace.
“Going empty-handed to the UN climate talks, and abdicating the role of climate leader, is a huge embarrassment and ignores Europe’s responsibility for enriching itself over decades of pollution.”
Under the 2015 COP Agreement in Paris, world leaders promised to try to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees.
The EU has previously agreed to go climate neutral by 2050.
It has also announced stepping stones along the way with a reduction in emissions set at 55 percent by 2030.
The European Commission has also proposed a cut of 90 percent by 2040.
But EU environment ministers have failed to sign off on that 2040 ambition. That means a target for 2035 cannot be agreed either.
Instead ministers were only able to reach agreement on a “statement of intent” to cutting emissions “in a range between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent” by 2035.
Greenpeace said that range was highly dubious.
“The EU’s own climate scientists recommend a target of at least 77 percent (and up to 87 percent) cuts by 2035 to be consistent with a 90 percent target in 2040 – a target that they themselves considered the minimum to reach the goals of the Paris climate agreement.”
The UK already announced its 2035 target last year, with a target of cutting emissions by 81 percent.
At an emergency meeting of the Environment Council yesterday, EU ministers agreed to leave it to their bosses, the EU27 leaders, to discuss when they meet for an EU summit at the end of October.
Ireland’s Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O’Brien, said he was disappointed that a deal had not been reached.
“Whilst we had hoped to reach agreement on a general approach…we do look ahead to having the leaders’ guidance and taking the file forward in a timely adoption of the 2040 targets”, he told his EU counterparts at the meeting yesterday.
If 27 heads of state and government, including the Taoiseach, can smooth the way, there is still a chance that environment ministers will be able to agree on a final figure before the COP30 conference in Brazil in November.