The battle to reach Europe’s 2040 climate targets has begun. On 2 July, the European Commission is due to present its proposals for reducing CO2 emissions.
It is expected to announce a 90% reduction to take the EU towards carbon neutrality by 2050.
This proposal comes at a time when the European Green Deal is being called into question and the EU’s competitiveness is being strengthened in the face of international competition.
Member states are preparing their political arguments for the debate. France has already taken the first offensive at last week’s European summit, setting out its framework.
“I’m in favour of having these targets in 2040, but basically I said some very simple things. Firstly, if we want these targets by 2040, we have to give ourselves the means to do so and make them compatible with our competitiveness. What does that mean? Technological neutrality, flexibility, investment,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the end of the meeting of the 27 EU leaders.
Flexibility: the word has been thrown around and is used repeatedly in Europe’s corridors of power. The Commission has also adopted the same term. The Vice-President of the institution responsible for the Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition seems ready to grant flexibility to convince capitals.
“Reducing our emissions by 90% by 2040 is a clear objective. We then need to discuss how we can combine the different elements, the possible flexibilities,” Teresa Ribera told Euronews.
The grey area of flexibility
For environmental NGOs, the figure of 90% reduction in emissions is an important marker, but they do not wish to limit the debate to this numerical assessment. Several organisations are warning of the flexibility and possible flaws in the Commission’s proposal.
Flexibility could take the form of international credits.
“Essentially, the EU and its member states could pay other countries outside the EU to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This amount would then be included in the 90% of greenhouse gas emissions within the EU’s borders,” explains Michael Sicaud-Clyet, Climate Governance Officer at WWF EU.
For him, this political sleight of hand is “a major problem, because it will divert investment to industry, or to people and municipalities outside the EU and it will cost more and have less positive impact on people and industry in the EU.”
Other forms of flexibility could involve absorbing carbon through carbon sinks, which are natural carbon absorbers, and permanent absorbers, which are technologies whose large-scale development has not yet been proven”, warns Michael Sicaud-Clyet.
Time for negotiations
France says it does not want to rush the negotiations. The 2040 targets “cannot be a technical debate that takes place in a few weeks. It must be a democratic debate,” Macron warned.
“It’s not a target for Belém (the Brazilian city will host COP30, the UN climate conference, this year). If we have it for Belém, great. If it’s going to take longer, let’s take longer to do it right.”
The President repeated his mantra of “flexibility, investment, technological neutrality and trade coherence, meaning that if we set targets for 2040, we want a trade policy that protects us.”
In this debate, Paris should be able to count on the support of Budapest and Warsaw. However, other member states such as Germany, Spain, Finland and Denmark (which holds the six-month EU presidency from 1 July) fully support the 90% emissions reduction target .
The WWF EU also mentions a number of “swing states,” countries that are keeping their final position vague.
For the European Commission, it is vital that the EU does not miss the turning point represented by the 2040 target.
“I think this could be a mistake. I think that this year (2025) marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement (on climate), and we want to determine how we can continue to make progress in an area that we consider essential for the economic and social well-being of Europeans,” says Teresa Ribera.
The Spanish official also opened the door to debate. “We will have to identify the challenges that lie ahead, while trying to reach an agreement between all the European countries.”
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