Europe's climate resolve faces big test as EU unveils 2040 goal
The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, will on Wednesday propose a binding law to slash emissions by 90% by 2040 as part of its overarching goal to reach climate neutrality by the middle of the century. While that shows the bloc is still up for the fight against global warming, it's been forced to offer various "flexibilities' to help countries meet the target.
With U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing from the landmark Paris Agreement for a second time, there's pressure on Europe to take the initiative. But the region's leaders are also distracted: ramping up defense spending, engaging in a trade war with Washington and trying to defend historic industries being squeezed by high energy prices.
As the stage is set for months of hard bargaining, here's what's at stake:
The goal
The 2040 target has been delayed for months as Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's climate commissioner, toured capitals to drum up support for a 90% net emissions-cutting goal that scientists say is the minimum for the bloc to meet its climate obligations. He also needed to await the outcome of key elections in Germany and Poland.
The message he received was clear: without sufficient flexibilities and a number of so-called enabling conditions — like investing in power grids — Hoekstra would not secure a majority in the European Parliament, nor the weighted majority of countries in the EU council that he needs to back the target.
"We don't see a majority in parliament nor council for any 2040 target without flexibility,' said Peter Liese, a lawmaker for the center-right European People's Party, the largest group in parliament. "Finally Europe will create the enabling conditions to actually reach any 2040 target.'
The solution
Hoekstra's solution rests on countries being able to use cheaper United Nations-administered international carbon offsets to meet around 3% of the 2040 target. Yet it's unclear how exactly that will work, especially after a previous experiment with international credits under the Kyoto Protocol proved to be a disaster.
What we know from the draft document is that, unlike previous attempts, they will not enter into the EU's Emissions Trading System and they'll only be allowed from the second half of the decade. Host countries that provide credits must also have their own climate ambitions in line with the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Doubts remain, however, over whether there will be enough high quality credits available, and how much they'll cost. The Article 6 U.N. rules, finalized last November, will also probably need to be phased out before mid-century because the EU's 2050 climate neutrality goal doesn't allow their use.
Political hurdles
The 2040 target will only enter into force following negotiations with the EU's 27 member states and the parliament. There are already tensions over the level of ambition and how quickly an agreement needs to be reached.
A group of EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, raised the issue of the target at a leaders summit in Brussels last week, highlighting the need to ensure that decarbonization and competitiveness go hand in hand. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala rejected the 90% cut outright, calling for a realistic goal. It would only take France and a few smaller member states to derail the 2040 target.
Things aren't much easier in the European Parliament, where the largest group, the EPP, is split over how aggressively the EU should pursue its climate goals. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who comes from the center-right group, is walking a tightrope to keep her centrist coalition intact: the socialists and liberals are demanding she stick to her green agenda, or risk losing the support of her two biggest allies in the assembly.
International obligations
Part of the reason the commission says it needs to put forward its 2040 goal now is so that it can submit an updated 2035 climate plan, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, to the U.N. by September. Countries are due to meet in Brazil for COP30 two months later to discuss how far off course the world still is.
The commission wants to derive its 2035 goal by drawing a line between 2030 and 2040, which would equate to an emissions cutting ambition of around 72.5%.
The challenge is that the NDC requires unanimous approval by member states, so any lingering doubts could force the EU to put forward a weaker goal, potentially damaging the bloc's reputation as a climate leader.
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Japan Times
14 hours ago
- Japan Times
Europe's climate resolve faces big test as EU unveils 2040 goal
The heat wave searing Europe is making a compelling case for one of the most ambitious climate targets ever set by Brussels. Many in the European Union, however, have yet to be convinced. The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, will on Wednesday propose a binding law to slash emissions by 90% by 2040 as part of its overarching goal to reach climate neutrality by the middle of the century. While that shows the bloc is still up for the fight against global warming, it's been forced to offer various "flexibilities' to help countries meet the target. With U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing from the landmark Paris Agreement for a second time, there's pressure on Europe to take the initiative. But the region's leaders are also distracted: ramping up defense spending, engaging in a trade war with Washington and trying to defend historic industries being squeezed by high energy prices. As the stage is set for months of hard bargaining, here's what's at stake: The goal The 2040 target has been delayed for months as Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's climate commissioner, toured capitals to drum up support for a 90% net emissions-cutting goal that scientists say is the minimum for the bloc to meet its climate obligations. He also needed to await the outcome of key elections in Germany and Poland. The message he received was clear: without sufficient flexibilities and a number of so-called enabling conditions — like investing in power grids — Hoekstra would not secure a majority in the European Parliament, nor the weighted majority of countries in the EU council that he needs to back the target. "We don't see a majority in parliament nor council for any 2040 target without flexibility,' said Peter Liese, a lawmaker for the center-right European People's Party, the largest group in parliament. "Finally Europe will create the enabling conditions to actually reach any 2040 target.' The solution Hoekstra's solution rests on countries being able to use cheaper United Nations-administered international carbon offsets to meet around 3% of the 2040 target. Yet it's unclear how exactly that will work, especially after a previous experiment with international credits under the Kyoto Protocol proved to be a disaster. What we know from the draft document is that, unlike previous attempts, they will not enter into the EU's Emissions Trading System and they'll only be allowed from the second half of the decade. Host countries that provide credits must also have their own climate ambitions in line with the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Doubts remain, however, over whether there will be enough high quality credits available, and how much they'll cost. The Article 6 U.N. rules, finalized last November, will also probably need to be phased out before mid-century because the EU's 2050 climate neutrality goal doesn't allow their use. Political hurdles The 2040 target will only enter into force following negotiations with the EU's 27 member states and the parliament. There are already tensions over the level of ambition and how quickly an agreement needs to be reached. A group of EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, raised the issue of the target at a leaders summit in Brussels last week, highlighting the need to ensure that decarbonization and competitiveness go hand in hand. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala rejected the 90% cut outright, calling for a realistic goal. It would only take France and a few smaller member states to derail the 2040 target. Things aren't much easier in the European Parliament, where the largest group, the EPP, is split over how aggressively the EU should pursue its climate goals. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who comes from the center-right group, is walking a tightrope to keep her centrist coalition intact: the socialists and liberals are demanding she stick to her green agenda, or risk losing the support of her two biggest allies in the assembly. International obligations Part of the reason the commission says it needs to put forward its 2040 goal now is so that it can submit an updated 2035 climate plan, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, to the U.N. by September. Countries are due to meet in Brazil for COP30 two months later to discuss how far off course the world still is. The commission wants to derive its 2035 goal by drawing a line between 2030 and 2040, which would equate to an emissions cutting ambition of around 72.5%. The challenge is that the NDC requires unanimous approval by member states, so any lingering doubts could force the EU to put forward a weaker goal, potentially damaging the bloc's reputation as a climate leader.
Japan Times
18 hours ago
- Japan Times
Blistering heat and empty chairs mar U.N.'s flagship development event
Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries — stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new heights. But at a once-a-decade U.N. development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power. Just one Group of Seven leader — French President Emmanuel Macron — attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms with dozens of empty chairs. Organizers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got underway. Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, rich-country leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defense spending and rising debt at home. "The mood is ... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding that the question on everyone's mind this week was how to do more with less. "How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new type of ways of really stretching it more?" The Financing For Development meeting is a flagship U.N. conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and U.N. policies for the decade to come. Few disagree over the need for action. Hundred-year floods and storms are happening with alarming regularity, and rising debt-servicing costs are siphoning money away from health, education and infrastructure spending in the developing world. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech during the close of the U.N. conference in Seville on Thursday. | AFP-Jiji But even top developing-world leaders such as Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister and a prominent global climate champion, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently chairing the Group of 20 major economies, backed out of the event at the last minute. The media room was stacked with Spanish press gossiping about a domestic political scandal while disillusioned civil-society leaders stalked the halls, upset with the watered-down agenda and the lack of fiscal or political firepower. "We are facing a backsliding of many agendas that we had advanced a few years ago," said Henrique Frota, director of ABONG, a Brazilian association of NGOs. "Developed countries are reducing their investment in (official development assistance) and European countries are not fulfilling their commitment ... they are giving less and less money right now for every kind of agenda." Event leaders were relieved to produce an outcome document — despite gnawing fears in the past months that Washington would torpedo any deal. In the end, U.S. officials backed out altogether. "The entire community was very afraid of coming here because one country wasn't attending," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Marcos Neto. "But the document ended up working out ... I'm leaving happy, with more optimism than I thought I would leave with." Neto highlighted significant steps toward implementing climate and development goals, including the Seville Platform and multiple agreements from public and private sectors to leverage funds for the biggest possible impact. A woman carries an umbrella near Las Setas during a heat wave in Seville on July 2. | REUTERS The Seville Commitment included tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-gross domestic product ratios to at least 15%, and get more rich countries to let the International Monetary Fund use "special drawing rights" money for countries that need it most. But in Seville, only host nation Spain signed on to commit 50% of its special drawing rights funds for the purpose. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed acknowledged that the attendance was not as star-studded as hoped, and that public funds are under pressure. "But there's innovative financing, there's the private sector, there's the triple lending of MDBs... so the resources are there," she said, referring to multilateral development banks. "We just have to have the political will to leverage through these mechanisms that have come out of the platform of action and continue moving with them." U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his country's absence, loomed large over the event; his climate change skepticism, hostility toward diversity initiatives and pledge to review U.S. participation in multilateral organizations made some keen to strip out references to climate change and rebrand initiatives as focused on resilience, education or health. Still, some said the gloomy backdrop should not deter leaders focused on progress. "Ultimately the important thing is doing it," said Jose Vinals, a former group chairman of Standard Chartered and cochair of both the FFD4 Business Steering Committee and the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. "The private sector is, for the most part, still willing to walk the talk."
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Where Is The Pope Guiding Us in This Changing World?
The Roman Catholic Church has chosen an American-born cardinal as its new pope, and he has taken the name Leo XIV. Many of the world's news outlets enthusiastically covered the conclave that elected the leader of the world's 1.4 billion-strong Catholics, as well as the challenges facing the church today. In what direction will the new pope take church reform? The power of religion is once more being tested by the chaotic reality of politics, and by political leaders in the United States, China and Russia, among other heads of government, who act arbitrarily. In January, Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. president. So, the world's attention is now focused on two American leaders, President Trump and Pope Leo. Of course, they lead in different domains. But both politics and religion are deployed to tame the chaos that lurks in the human heart. Trump has made clear from his policies that the United States is looking to step back from its role in shaping and maintaining the world order. He has already staked out a thoroughly protectionist stance, begun the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change and frozen U.S. funding for the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization, among other international agencies. He has also shown indifference to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Trump thinks the United States has not benefited enough from international agreements, international organizations and military alliances to compensate it for how much it has spent on infrastructure for maintaining the global order, in other words public goods. But in this mental calculus that sees unilateralism as reasonable, there is no understanding of how an international order with no hegemon will collapse, triggering major turmoil. American economic historian Charles Kindleberger argued that a global leadership vacuum was to blame for instability in currencies, a turbulent world economy and the rise of protectionism in the 1930s. After World War I, there was a dire need for the United States, which was experiencing a remarkable economic rise, to explicitly take over as the global economic hegemon from the United Kingdom, which had lost its momentum. However, the United States was focused on its own interests and would not assume the responsibilities of a hegemon. This was the main reason the Great Depression lasted so long, according to Kindleberger. For its part, the United Kingdom was no longer willing or able to carry on as the provider of 'international public goods.' It could no longer fulfill the responsibilities of a hegemon, such as coordinating macroeconomic policies among countries and supporting free markets and a stable currency system — the foundation of global economic infrastructure. On the other hand, despite its economic predominance, the United States never seriously tried to stabilize the public goods that are global trade and currency exchange. What do we see when we apply Kindleberger's perspective to U.S.-China tensions today and Washington's latest shift toward 'America First'? We see a world facing a harsh reality, one of worsening trade wars and growing competition for resources, with no country assuming the mantle of hegemon to create order. Once order begins to break down, things easily return to the chaos and barbarism of the primitive world. We have been reminded of this fact by Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the Palestine-Israel conflict and the missile strikes exchanged by Iran and Israel. Irreconcilable goals What message will the new pontiff send amid such circumstances? One thing is clear: The new pope has a very strong interest in social issues. This can be inferred from how he worked assiduously to eradicate poverty and political corruption in Peru in the 1980s, and from his choice of the papal name Leo. Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) is remembered for having issued in 1891 the groundbreaking encyclical 'Rerum Novarum,' which declared that the Catholic Church would seriously address social issues. The encyclical touched on the rights of workers and the limits of private property ownership from the perspective of human dignity at a time when economic competition was becoming increasingly fierce due to rapid industrialization. Pope Leo XIV has said he wants to address, with the help of experts, issues relating to the spread of robots and artificial intelligence, both brought about by the new industrial revolution of the 21st century. The new pontiff is viewed as paying tribute to Pope Leo XIII, as a leader determined to continue on the earlier pontiff's path. Science and technology have changed our lives greatly over the past half century. Have they brought happiness, or are they a source of unhappiness? There can be no simple answer since it depends on how the technologies are used. That said, history shows that cultures that are superior in science and technology inject themselves into those that lag behind and, with overwhelming force, bring assimilation. For example, in the 12th century, Europe experienced an influx of Islamic culture, which carried a wealth of knowledge on the empirical sciences, such as medicine, astronomy and chemistry, and a variety of social problems emerged in Europe. Similarly today, the overwhelming push toward assimilation caused by science and technology, which chiefly originate in the United States, raises the question of whether AI will surpass humans. Surely, many people would like to know how the Catholic Church — which from its perspective based on faith has been observing these matters that force a reexamination of humanity — views the latest issues. Trump's policy toward Harvard and other leading U.S. universities is also causing major upheaval. Pope Leo XIII took a clear stance on the freedom of education and research in universities. He supported the so-called Oxford Movement that advocated separation of church and state, and deeply valued English theologian John Henry Newman and his idea of liberal education in universities. Whether one supports or criticizes the political power of the time, being able to reason freely while maintaining a distance from power is essential to society. Pope Leo XIII recognized that universities have value beyond simply nurturing human resources for the sake of national strength and economic power. Clearly, there is an irreconcilable divergence between the goals of Trump and Pope Leo XIV. Western societies have a long history of conflict over religion's interference in politics. The separation of church and state, a principle that is now mainstream, is very clear: Political power is to be separate from religious power, and neither is to intrude upon the other. However, Japan and the West have not been on the same page about what this principle is meant to deter. In modern Japan, there is a fear that politics will be dominated by one religious group. But in the West, which has a long history of movements aimed at securing freedom, people have focused on how to prevent a weakening of religion due to entanglement in politics. This is because they want religion to retain its power to bring order to people's minds when they are heading toward chaos and barbarism. What direction will the new pope point us in amid our tumultuous politics and rapidly changing society? I believe that it is important not to simply wait for messages from others but to reexamine our thoughts and lives. Takenori Inoki Inoki is a professor emeritus at Osaka University, where he also served as dean of the economics department. He was a specially appointed professor at Aoyama Gakuin University from 2012 to 2016. Prior to that, he served as director general of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies from 2008 to 2012. The original Japanese article appeared in the June 29 issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
