National capitals were locked in negotiations on Tuesday to agree on an ambitious target for the European Union to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, following weeks of contentious political wrangling over the union’s future climate commitments.
Environment ministers from EU states were in Brussels to negotiate a deal promising to cut the bloc’s emissions by 90 per cent of 1990 levels over the next 15 years.
The plan, an attempt to keep Europe’s green transition from fossil fuels on track in the face of competing defence and industrial demands, includes several carve-outs and concessions to governments that want the union to slow the pace of its climate reforms.
The Republic and many other states are under serious pressure to meet existing EU targets to cut emissions by the end of this decade. Experts have warned the Government could face billions of euros in fines for falling far short of a promised 51 per cent reduction by 2030.
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The longer-term targets for 2040 would bind the EU to a 90 per cent cut in emissions, on the way to it becoming climate neutral by 2050.
The targets will require a large shift to renewable energy, the phase-out of petrol and diesel engines in cars, and big changes in historically polluting industries and businesses.
The Government said it would support the 2040 plan, after receiving assurances that states that fell short of earlier climate targets would not be “unfairly penalised” by crippling billion-euro fines.
The Polish government has pushed for the union’s 2040 targets to include exemptions, so that climate commitments would not hamper plans to significantly increase military production and defence spending to deter any future Russian attack.
Spain’s left-wing climate minister, Sara Aagesen Munoz, said the 90 per cent target was a “red line” that the EU could not backtrack on. “We need to show to the world that we are leaders,” she said before the EU meeting on Tuesday morning.
Intensive talks have been taking place for several weeks to secure the support of a weighted majority of EU states to approve the plan. Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government in Italy has dug in its heels against the interim targets, as has Hungary and Slovakia.
One senior diplomat involved in the negotiations likened it to building a complex Lego puzzle without a set of instructions. Several concessions have been put on the table to get national capitals to buy into the 2040 target.
These include giving governments more leeway to buy carbon “credits” to help them meet their targets. Credits would allow an EU state to finance emission reductions in other countries, such as those in the Global South, and count that reduction towards its own target.
There will also be more flexibility for countries if forests or other carbon sinks fail to absorb as many greenhouse emissions as expected.
Ministers were separately negotiating a fresh commitment on green reforms the EU would bring to the Cop30 climate summit, which is taking place in Brazil in the coming days.
Speaking on Tuesday, European commissioner for climate Wopke Hoekstra said the EU’s ambition on climate was “close to second to none”.
US president Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the landmark Paris Agreement, the 2015 global pledge to take urgent steps to limit further global warming, had “very significant ramifications for international climate policy”, the commissioner said.
Mr Hoekstra said he would also have preferred to see China’s new climate target – to cut emissions by between 7 and 10 per cent over the next decade – to be much more ambitious.
