Environment ministers representing the European Union’s 27 member states failed to agree emissions reduction targets for 2035 and 2040 in Brussels on Thursday, instead asking their countries’ leaders to weigh in when they meet next month.
With several primarily Eastern European nations opposed – and others wavering – ministers agreed to ask their leaders to consider the key climate goals at a European Council meeting in October, in the hope of agreeing targets before the COP30 climate summit in November.
This means that the EU will not submit its 2035 target in time for it to factor into the UN’s annual synthesis report of national climate plans, due in late October, which will analyse governments’ climate commitments and estimate how far off the Paris climate agreement’s temperature targets they are.
It also means that EU officials will head to the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week without new targets to offer. Instead, they will just have what the Danish minister chairing the talks called a “statement of intent” to reduce emissions by between 66.25% and 72.5% below 1990 levels by 2035.
Some ministers that want stronger targets warned the delay could lead to the emissions cuts being watered down. A decision by environment ministers on the 2040 target can be made through qualified majority voting. But EU leaders will decide on the basis of unanimity, allowing climate laggards to block ambition. It is not clear if EU leaders will decide on the target at their next meeting or just debate it.
Ahead of today’s Environment Council meeting, the environment minister of Sweden – which supports the European Commission’s proposed target to cut emissions 90% between 1990 and 2040 – walked up to waiting journalists and said unprompted that “hesitation is a luxury that we cannot afford”.
Romina Pourmokhtari added that she was “quite disappointed at recent developments”, adding that her message to “all countries but particularly Germany and France” – which have pushed for a delay so leaders can contribute – is that “I and Sweden do not believe that it will become a better product by prolonging this process. This will not create a better outcome”.
But Elisa Giannelli, E3G lead on climate governance and European politics, was positive. She told Climate Home News that “we’ve heard enough member states being quite positive about the commission’s proposal today”, adding “it will eventually be down to France to swing over to the “supportive camp” once leaders have “provided the reassurance and guidance they are calling for”. France is widely regarded as the swing vote.
At the meeting, representatives from Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary opposed the 90% proposal. Krzysztof Bolesta, from the Polish environment ministry, said an 83% target is “at very, very high cost, maximum we can do”.
Slovakia’s environment minister Tomáš Taraba said “it would be good to start with a lower target and – if necessary and feasible – we can increase in the next revision”, a position supported by Hungary’s Anikó Raisz.
On the other side, representatives of the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg and Austria supported the 90% proposal. Spain’s Sara Aagesen Munoz said it was “science-based” and the Dutch representative called it “feasible” and “the most logical way towards climate neutrality in 2050”.
Missing UN deadlines
On his way into the meeting, the German environment ministry’s state secretary Jochen Flasbarth blamed the European Commission for the “loss of time”. “If the Commission would have provided the dossier earlier then we would be in a different situation,” he told reporters.
EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the ministers that he had hoped the targets would be decided today but the delay “could also be useful to ensure the broadest possible political support”.
Asked ahead of today’s meeting what message missing the UN’s end-of-September deadline for 2035 NDCs will send, Finland’s environment minister Sari Multala said it is “hard for us to require the others – our international partners to do the same if we don’t deliver ourselves”.
According to the UN, 36 nations have already submitted their 2035 targets – known in UN jargon as nationally determined contributions (NDC). Australia today promised to cut emissions 62-70% between 2005 and 2035. China is expected to announce its target this week or next and many other nations will launch their targets at a UN summit in New York on Wednesday.
Losing climate leadership?
Asked if China will take over the EU’s climate leadership on the international stage, Hoekstra said “it would be fantastic if they would outperform our NDC”. Separately, Poland’s Bolesta told a reporter, “I don’t know why you would say we are worse than China” as “it’s not about who is faster, it’s about who is more robust and more credible.”
Hungary’s environment minister Anikó Raisz said “those from the EU going to New York, we have nothing to hide” as the EU is a “leading example”. Hoekstra said the EU’s NDC would be among the most ambitious in the world along with “our friends from Great Britain and a couple of other places”.
Speaking yesterday, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States negotiating group, Ilana Seid from Palau, said she was “putting pressure” on the EU to “step up” because “their NDC announcement would really change the momentum and the kind of ambition heading into the COP”.
The timeline for deciding the two official EU targets is now unclear, but is likely to involve a specially-convened European Council leaders’ meeting and then another environment ministers meeting.
Danish environment minister Lars Aagaard said he hoped the targets would be adopted ahead of COP30 “as this would send a strong signal to the world – but ultimately we are, of course, in the hands of states and governments”.
