European Union countries on Monday, reached an agreement to raise their target to curb greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement next year.
Climate ministers of the countries also approved their joint negotiating position for the United Nations summit in November, which was supposed to serve as a deadline for nearly 200 countries to hike their climate pledges. This is even as the bloc attempts to rally ambition among major emitters ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks.
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The 27-country EU, which is the world’s third-biggest polluter, pledged to upgrade its target “as soon as possible”, but said this could not be done until the bloc finishes negotiating a dozen new emissions-cutting laws.
Most countries have not submitted new targets.
EU countries have also agreed to wrap up those negotiations by the end of this year – a tight deadline for the dozen laws, which include a ban on new fossil fuel car sales by 2035 and an overhaul of the EU carbon market.
Officials of the EU said that the bloc was racing to clinch deals on three policies in time for the COP27 summit on Nov. 7 and that the EU’s current target is to cut its net emissions by 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels.
The officials hope it will be possible to nudge that goal higher, because the package of climate policies was designed in July 2021 to deliver the 55% emissions target – and parts of it have since been made more ambitious.
On Monday, the ministers also agreed that the EU would support putting “loss and damage” – the contentious topic of compensation for the damage floods, rising seas and other climate change-fuelled impacts are inflicting on the world’s poorest – on the agenda for the COP27 gathering in Egypt.
This is expected to represent a breakthrough since even getting the issue onto the summit agenda has proved contentious. The EU and the United States are facing pressure from developing nations to soften their long-standing resistance to such compensation.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
