Reports coming in suggest that EU countries have finally agreed to back a 2035 phase-out of new fossil-fuel car sales and a multi-billion-euro fund to shield poorer citizens from the costs of carbon dioxide emissions.
The climate proposals are aimed at ensuring that the EU – which is the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter – reaches its 2030 target of reducing net emissions by 55% from 1990 levels. Doing so will require governments and industries to invest heavily in cleaner manufacturing, renewable energy and electric vehicles.
After more than 16 hours of negotiations, environment ministers from the 27 member states of the EU agreed- in the early hours of Wednesday- on their joint positions on five laws, part of a broader package of measures to slash planet-heating emissions this decade.
Reacting to the agreement, EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said that the climate crisis and its consequences were clear and so the policy was unavoidable, adding that he thought the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a major supplier of gas, was spurring countries to quit fossil fuels faster.
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According to reports, ministers also expressed their support for core parts of the package that the European Commission, which was first proposed last year, including a law requiring new cars sold in the EU to emit zero CO2 from 2035.
Expectedly, this would make it impossible to sell internal combustion engine cars. The deal makes it likely that the proposal will become EU law, with the ministers’ agreements expected to form their position in upcoming negotiations with the EU parliament on the final laws.
Although Italy, Slovakia and other states had wanted the phase-out delayed to 2040, they eventually backed a compromise proposed by Germany, the EU’s biggest car market, which kept the 2035 target and asked Brussels to assess in 2026 whether hybrid vehicles or CO2-neutral fuels could comply with the goal.
Further reacting to the latest development, Timmermans said that the commission would keep an “open mind” but that at present, hybrids did not deliver sufficient emissions cuts and alternative fuels were prohibitively expensive.
Although they said it should launch in 2027, a year later than initially planned, ministers backed a new EU carbon market to impose CO2 costs on polluting fuels used in transport and buildings
They agreed to form a €59bn EU fund to shield low-income citizens from the policy’s costs from 2027 to 2032, after several negotiations.
While Lithuania was the only country to oppose the final agreements, having unsuccessfully sought a bigger fund alongside Poland and Latvia, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands had wanted it to be smaller.
The countries accepted core elements of the commission’s proposal intended to reinforce the market to cut emissions 61% by 2030 as well as extend it to cover shipping.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
