The proposal to upgrade the EU’s long-term target to net zero emissions by 2050 included in the draft Long-Term EU Climate Strategy released by the European Commission today is an important step forward, but it is likely not enough to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Statement from the Board of Climate Action Network Europe, regarding allegations of inappropriate conduct within the management of the Climate Action Network International Secretariat:
The European Commission is expected to publish its proposal for a long-term EU climate strategy on Wednesday, 28 November. This proposal will set the stage for negotiations among European governments about how much the EU should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and what action it should take to make sure it achieves the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. The IPCC’s recent report says that the next 12 years are critical to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Just ahead of the world’s foremost summit on climate change, COP24, 16 European leaders have called upon all countries of the world to commit to review the levels of ambition of their Paris Agreement pledges by 2020, in light of the findings of the IPCC Special Report.
The Polish Ministry of Energy presented today its draft national energy policy 2040, whose orientation obviously stands in the way of the Paris Agreement as well as EU’s energy targets by 2030. It also turns a blind eye on the ever decreasing costs of renewable technologies, wind power in particular.
The transport and industry committees of the European Parliament voted today on the future Connecting Europe Facility after 2020. While this EU fund should enable infrastructure that connects Europe’s citizens with clean energy and sustainable transport, MEPs turned a blind eye on the need to exclude fossil fuel subsidies from the fund.
Today, the Climate Vulnerable Forum - a forum of countries who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - are holding the first Virtual Climate Summit of Heads of State and Government. Several European leaders are joining the 24-hour event, adding momentum for urgent climate action ahead of COP24.
Shifting financial flows is crucial to global efforts to combat climate change. The European Commission claims that its proposals for the post-2020 EU budget are in line with the Paris Agreement. However, support for fossil fuels remains in the pipeline of future budget negotiations, as revealed today in the ‘EU Toxic Funding Awards’.
The Polish electricity grid operator has just published the official preliminary results of the first capacity market auction in Poland to award contracts to power plants from 2021 onwards. Capacity mechanisms, which are supposedly intended to ensure supply in case extra power is needed, are often used as backdoor subsidies for the most uneconomic power plants, which are also the least efficient and most polluting. As such, they are a source of additional profit for the utilities on top of their regular revenues from the actual supply of electricity.
In a letter to the European Commission sent last week, environment ministers representing 10 EU Member States have called upon the EU’s executive to clearly support a target of reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 and propose a higher 2030 target in the draft long-term climate strategy to be published on 28 November.
Nicolas Derobert
Communications Coordinator
nicolas /at/ caneurope.org
Work: +32 2894 4673
Mobile: +32 483 621 888
Stevan Vujasinović
Communications Coordinator for Southeast Europe
stevan /at/ caneurope.org
Mobile: +381 (0)63 390 218
Goksen Sahin
Communications Coordinator
goksen /at/ caneurope.org
Work: +32 2893 0827
Mobile: +32 468 453 920
