The European Commission will aim to set a new emissions-reduction goal for 2040 by the end of March, in what is a clear bid to reassert its global climate leadership role.
Some of Europe’s climate goals have already been set in stone. The bloc has another five years to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% and must be ‘climate neutral’ by 2050.
Countries differ on those goals; some have chosen to go net-zero before mid-century, others will take longer. But once all the climate sums are totted up, this is what the EU must collectively achieve.
There is a glaring omission in that timeline though: how will the EU move from 55% cuts to net-zero, where all the emissions generated by the Union must be neutralised by carbon sinks and technology?
A 2040 benchmark is sorely needed to bridge that gap and by the end of March, the Commission is expected to propose its plan for it.
According to the EU executive branch’s new work programme for 2025, it will suggest that this target should be 90% net emissions cuts. That would set the bloc up nicely to achieve that final 10% in the 2040s, which most experts believe will be the hardest to secure.
After all, by that point, all of the low-hanging fruit and easy stuff like electricity will likely have already been decarbonised. Aviation, shipping, heavy transport and tricky industrial processes like cement manufacturing might be all that are left by then.
However, whatever the Commission proposes will be criticised for either being too ambitious or not ambitious enough.
Civil society and companies that are on the more progressive side will likely point to the fact that the EU’s new independent scientific advisory board recently said that the cuts should be between 90% and 95%.
A 90% target is obviously on the lower end of that bracket, so it will be up to the Commission to justify that decision. The climate experts it is supposed to listen to said something a little different, so why was the full breadth of that advice not heeded?
On the other hand, Europe and indeed the world is currently in the midst of a political climate that does not bode well for green policies. We have seen deregulation fever start to grip Brussels and Donald Trump’s torching of environmental rules needs no further explaining.
Whether the Commission will be able to get support for the 90% target will be the big question that will take some time to answer. Both the European Parliament and Council need to sign off on such a far-reaching, all-encompassing piece of legislation.
The Parliament shifted further to the right after last year’s election and the current crop of MEPs are hardly the most eco-minded bunch as a result. In the Council, it is much the same story.
Two factors may influence the eventual ambition of this target. The first is the result of next week’s federal election in Germany. The centre-right’s Friedrich Merz is the likely next chancellor but who will he govern with?
If the Greens post stronger than expected results and make it back into government, then Germany will potentially be more likely to champion a stronger target. On the flipside, if the far-right AfD party somehow makes it into power, then all bets are off.
The second factor is the far-flung nature of the 2040 target. It is 15 years away, perhaps that is far enough in the future for politicians to make their peace with supporting higher ambition, as it will likely outlast their political careers.
This was part of the reason behind the success of the 2050 target negotiations. Its horizon was so far down the line that those with vested interests in the short- and medium-term did not put all of their energy into fighting it.
The EU could reassert its global climate leadership by getting a 2040 target on the books as quickly as possible and yet again show the rest of the world the way forward. There is no doubt that the 2050 target had this effect.
However, how long this process will take and how ferocious the fight over it will be, could curtail the EU's green credentials.
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