Countries are not on track to achieve the 1.5°C target

Discussions about new 2035 and 2040 climate targets have started in the European Union.

At the last European Council of Environment Ministers (16 October), the EU adopted a new NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution to the UNFCCC, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). Unfortunately the new NDC did not include a change of the headline target from the previous version submitted in December 2020. The EU’s 2030 climate target is still to reduce domestic net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 as compared to 1990 emissions. This target does not represent the EU’s fair share towards the collective goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C. More needs to be done and calls for a further revision of the target will remain.

In the meantime, discussions about new 2035 and 2040 climate targets have started. There are two reasons for that. First, the EU Climate Law foresees that the European Commission should propose a new 2040 climate target by June 2024. Preparations for that proposal have already started and the newly established European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has for instance proposed that the 2040 target should be between 90 per cent  and 95 per cent of net greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Secondly, the EU committed at COP26 in Glasgow to communicate in 2025 a new 2035 NDC. Currently the Commission is planning to derive this 2035 NDC from the pathway towards the 2040 target described above. However this is not really in line with the spirit of what was agreed at COP26 as countries actually agreed to work with five-year timeframes for their targets, allowing sufficient flexibility to adapt targets when needed on the basis of new science and/or overall emission reduction developments.

In fact, this concept is included in the Climate Law, which was adopted before COP26 and calls for a review of the date of the next climate target in light of the outcome of the international discussions on NDC timeframes. Unfortunately, despite the decision at COP26 in November 2021, this review has not taken place. Nevertheless there are good arguments for having the debate focus on the 2035 target rather than the 2040 target.

The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change published its proposal in June this year. In that proposal they advocated for net emission reductions of 90–95 per cent by 2040, relative to 1990 levels. Though at the same time, the Advisory Board acknowledged that their proposals were not aligned with even the most lenient fair shares estimate (the per capita approach). In their proposal it is assumed that other, mainly developing countries, would have bigger restrictions on their emissions than those in place in the EU.

In a newly published briefing from AirClim, it is argued that in order for the EU to make its fair contribution to pathways that would have a decent (66%) chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C a  (gross) emission reduction target of 82 per cent by 2035 would be required, to be combined with a dramatic increase in the removal capacity of soils and forests, resulting in a net emission reduction target of 94 per cent.

The paper is grounded on the many assessments made by scientists and UN institutions which indicate that countries are not on track to achieve the 1.5°C target and that all countries, including those in the EU, need to do more than they are currently planning. In fact, based on the latest Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world can only emit a maximum of 400 gigatonnes of CO₂ between 2020 and 2050 if it is to have a decent likelihood (66%) of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C. Dividing that budget based on the EU’s current and estimated future share of the world population, it is estimated that the EU’s greenhouse gas budget for the period 2020 to 2050 would be a maximum of 27.5 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalents.

Current EU policies, adopted under the Fit for 55 framework, would lead to EU greenhouse gas emissions of more than 50 gigatonnes, almost double the fair share budget of 27.5 gigatonnes. A drastic course correction is needed. And the longer we wait with current policies in place, the more radical the changes will need to be after 2030. The new AirClim briefing calls for an emergency package of measures which include additional efforts in the short-term and the establishment of a net emissions reduction target of 94 per cent by 2035.

Wendel Trio

https://www.airclim.org/sites/default/files/documents/eu-climate-targets...