EU climate targets aligned with the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C objective

With climate impacts happening all around, governments are expected to increase action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and subsequent temperature rise. The longer we delay transformative action, the more substantial and challenging the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts will need to be. This also applies to the EU. This paper aims to look at the implications of current EU policies and targets on the EU’s carbon budget, the processes to set or update the EU’s 2030, 2035 and 2040 targets, and highlights the need for much more ambition in target setting if the EU is to make a fair share to the global efforts to limit dangerous climate change.