EU puts Green Deal on charger

Week of activities aims to keep bloc’s climate goals in focus despite virus

The European Union, which is fighting an uphill battle against rapid spikes of new COVID- 19 cases, is pushing ahead with its proposed Green Deal that aims to make the bloc the first climate neutral continent by 2050.

The EU Green Week 2020, which opened on Monday, has become an online event due to the pandemic. It includes conferences on biodiversity, video series about circular fashion, classes for children about ecofriendly habits, workshops on managing environmental disasters and other expert panels on environmental issues.

The week of activities is aimed at helping people understand how the EU’s Green Deal can help protect and restore nature and biodiversity.

The Green Deal was called by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “Europe’s man on the moon moment” when she unveiled the ambitious plan on Dec 11, just days after taking office.

The Green Deal, which would require at least 1 trillion euros ($ 1.18 trillion) over the next decade, calls for actions in all parts of the EU economy, such as investing in environmentally friendly technologies, supporting industries to innovate, decarbonizing the energy sector, making buildings more energy efficient, moving toward cleaner forms of private and public transport and improving global environmental standards by working with international partners.

In its plenary session on Oct 7, the European Parliament supported the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 and an ambitious 60- percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 from the 1990 levels. The target will become legally binding if the Parliament and European Council approve the EU Climate Law first put forward in March.

However, leaders of EU member states meeting in Brussels last week failed to agree on the 2030 goal, leaving it to the next EU summit in December.

“We feel more and more support in order to increase our goal for 2030. This is an important step toward 2050,” European Council President Charles Michel said after the summit.

He said that the important question is, and will be, how member states can get the target together.

“We will work very closely and very hard in order to see how it’s possible to take into consideration, for example, the different starting points in the different member states, but also different national circumstances,” Michel said.

The 60 percent goal pushed by the parliament is higher than the 55 percent proposed by the European Commission last month, already an upgrade from the previous goal of 40 percent.

More disruptive

Some poorer Central European nations have argued that since the transition is more disruptive and expensive for them, wealthy countries, which have less carbon- intensive economies, should do more.

Hungary, Poland and some other Central European countries are still against an ambitious 2030 goal and some have threatened to veto other EU policies that require unanimous approval, such as the next EU budget from 2021 to 2027.

The distribution of the 17.5- billion- euro ($ 20.7 billion) Just Transition Fund to help countries switch to greener economies has also become a contentious issue among member states.

Environmentalists argue that a 2030 goal below 55 percent would not meet the 1.5 C or well below the 2 C above preindustrial level as required by the Paris climate agreement.

The Climate Action Network Europe has proposed an emissions cut to be at least 65 percent in order to reach the 1.5 C target.

“In order to create the necessary global momentum, the EU must present a new target by the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement on Dec 12, one day after the decisive European Council meeting,” said Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network Europe.

Angele Kedaitiene, a former European Commission official and an expert on green economy, praised the Green Deal for aiming to ensure the EU will have net- zero carbon emissions by 2050.

She noted that the major obstacles in its implementation will relate to finances, differences among member states and to COVID- 19. And the European Parliament has already noted it is not enough for only 30 percent of new EU budget from 2021- 27 to be green.

“Member states differ by their green goals. Some, like Poland, are still coal- dependent, thus the green transition will be very uneven,” she said.