Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – European Union states lagging on carbon emission drops, European Commission informed MEPs.
EU countries are under-shooting their 2030 greenhouse gas emission decrease targets, a European Commission official informed lawmakers during the first session of this European Parliament’s environment committee. Yvon Slingenberg, the head for strategy, analysis and planning in the Commission’s climate department, informed MEPs there’s “a clear need to significantly step-up performance efforts” and accelerate emission reductions to dwell on track to achieve overall climate targets set under the European Climate Law.
Slingenberg discoursed MEPs on climate goals under standards such as the Effort Sharing Regulation, which specifies national targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction by member states by 2030, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), and national energy and climate goals(NECPs).
“Member states are now in the process of submitting their final national energy and climate plans taking into account the Commission’s recommendations,”
stated the EU executive representative.
Why are national energy and climate plans delayed?
To date, only ten EU nations have submitted their absolute NECPs — Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Sweden, despite the deadline being 30 June. The EU Commission encouraged the remaining countries to deliver their plans. The EU executive’s projection, founded on last December’s assessment, of the draft NECPs is that current methods would lead to an overall decline of 51% of GHGs by 2030, spokesman Tim McPhie said.
“Their [member states] projections are not bringing us to the targets … We’re not on track in deep parts of climate policy,”
stated German EPP lawmaker Peter Liese, adding that national assessments tend to be too optimistic. Slingenberg briefed MEPs that action is most needed to lower GHG emissions in buildings and transport, agriculture and carbon sinks, such as forests and oceans.
Luke Haywood, policy manager for climate and energy at the Brussels-based umbrella organisation European Environmental Bureau (EEB), expressed the new EU mandate
“must set task forces to evaluate progress on energy savings, renewables, and electrification.”
“An EU energy agency is also urgently required to make widely available dedicated data to guide Europe’s energy transition,” EEB’s Haywood said, to lead the change to carbon neutrality “with authority, transparency, and consistency”.
