The EU must cut greenhouse gas pollution almost three times more quickly than it has over the past decade to meet its climate targets, a European Commission report has said.
In an attempt to stop weather growing more extreme, the EU has promised to pump 55% less planet-heating gas into the air in 2030 than it did in 1990. But over the past three decades it has cut emissions by just 32%, leaving behind “significant gaps” for the next seven years, the commission found in its latest State of the Energy Union report.
Current policies will cut emissions in 2030 by just 43%, according to new estimates from the European Environment Agency project. The figure rises to 48% if they include policies that have been planned but not yet put in place, but still leave a deficit in climate action of seven percentage points.
“To fully achieve these targets, the pace of emissions reductions needs to step up,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s new climate commissioner.
The commission report praised efforts to quickly ditch gas from Russia in the wake of its war in Ukraine, which rapidly pushed up energy prices. The EU slashed imports of Russian gas from 155bn cubic metres in 2021 to 80bn cubic metres in 2022 and to an estimated 40-45bn cubic metres in 2023.
The EU also oversaw a boom in clean technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels, the report found, but the commission cautioned that renewable energy needed to grow much faster than it had over the past decade. On average, the share of renewables in European energy has grown 0.67 percentage points each year to hit 21.8% in 2021. Reaching the EU target of 42.5% by the end of the decade “will require a much faster growth in the coming years”, the report found.
Emissions are falling steadily but three things stand out, said Hoekstra. “One, significant emissions cuts are needed in buildings and transport. Progress in these sectors has been sluggish at best. Two, the natural carbon sink needs to grow. In certain places the carbon sink has become a source of emissions, and that is worrying. And three, we need much more substantial progress in cutting emissions in agriculture.”
Hoekstra, a former employee of oil firm Shell and consultancy McKinsey, also said fossil fuel subsidies were “unhelpful” for the clean energy transition and reminded national governments of their promises to get rid of them.
Most EU member states responded to the energy crisis by making it easier for people and industries to buy and burn fossil fuels. Subsidies surged to €123bn in 2022, half of which do not have an end date this decade, the report found.
At the Cop28 climate summit next month the EU has said it will push for a global phaseout of unabated fossil fuels – ie those where the planet-heating gases emitted are not captured – and certain subsidies.
Hoekstra said: “In the Cop28 mandate, all member states – I’ll say again, all member states – agreed fossil fuel subsidies that do not address either energy poverty or the just transition must be phased out as soon as possible.”
Several European governments have dragged their feet on climate action in recent months despite prodding from the EU. Only a handful of member states met the commission’s June deadline for submitting their draft climate and energy plans and action plans are still missing from three of the five biggest polluters: Germany, France and Poland.
According to a new report from the European branch of campaign group Climate Action Network (CAN), the policies in the drafts that were submitted are not enough to keep the planet from heating by 1.5C above preindustrial levels. They are also too weak to comply with minimum EU climate and energy requirements for 2030.
Chiara Martinelli, the director of CAN Europe, called on governments in the EU to “match the magnitude of the challenge” in their action plans. “This report starkly highlights the glaring contrast between the urgent demand for accelerated climate action and the sluggish on-ground progress.”
