The EU wants pollution to be slashed 90 percent in the next 25 years

The Commission’s 2040 EU target isn’t going to happen without a knife, but the Commission will push through the kinks

At face value, it’s an ambitious target for transforming the European Union’s energy system. The devil is in the details. The proposed plan is getting a lot of strong reactions.

A formal proposal still needs to be issued, but it has already faced pushback on how much of those pollution cuts should come from risky tactics aimed at capturing rather than preventing pollution. Some environmental groups are also criticizing a glaring omission in the draft: while it mentions phasing out coal, there’s no strategy to phase out oil and gas.

The 2040 target focuses on a ‘net cut’, meaning that the goal can be met by actual cuts to emissions alongside technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) that lock emissions underground. The commission also wants to phase out coal-fired power by 2040, as well as fossil fuel subsidies, which it says “do not address energy poverty or just transition”.

The 2040 target is an interim goal, following a commitment by the EU to slash emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 and then to net zero by 2050. That’s all in line with what is necessary to stop climate change while also trying to adapt to it and still have a good chance at doing so. The US and China have made the same commitments to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions around the middle of the century, though it is still not certain how these policies will be implemented.

In a few words, the Commission’s plan is very encouraging. I mean, the fact that they’re setting targets at all is important.”

There’s still time for the proposal to shift with European Parliament elections in June. Post election, a new Commission could put forward a revised proposal that would then need to be approved by the European Parliament and European Council. Farmers have protested against stricter climate measures and the recommendation was already weaker than the leaked draft.

The target was revealed in a ‘communication’ report on 6 February. The communication is not legally binding, but it will form the basis of law that will take the EU beyond its current targets, and onto its goal of 2050.

The communication clearly states that member states cannot just rely on removing carbon, they must also reduce emissions in parallel. “Carbon dioxide removal definitely comes with this kind of risk of obfuscating what actually needs to happen, by expecting that indeed carbon dioxide will be removed,” he says.

Although the commission’s 2040 target provides a more detailed plan towards achieving net zero — meaning greenhouse-gas emissions are zero or completely balanced by removal mechanisms — it will be important to ensure that it doesn’t detract from efforts to meet the 2030 goals, says Klein. Countries already aren’t on track to meet 2030 targets, and a political shift to the right in many EU nations makes it less likely that the bloc will meet the existing goal, says Klein.

“We’ve got several countries with governments either just installed or in the making, like in the Netherlands, where the governments are likely to be led by parties who either don’t believe in climate change or don’t consider climate policy to be particularly the priority,” he says.

Researchers also say that although reducing carbon emissions is crucial, there needs to be more focus on adaptation — lessening the current or future impacts of climate change, such as by building flood barriers. “We can’t effectively mitigate climate change without more ambitious finance for adapting to the impacts it’s already having,” says climate-policy researcher Mikael Allan Mikaelsson, who is also at the Stockholm Environment Institute.