The European Commission has published a detailed impact assessment on possible pathways to reach the agreed goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050.
Based on this impact assessment, the Commission recommends a 90 percent net greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, and launching a discussion with all stakeholders.
A legislative proposal will be made by the next Commission, after the European elections. The Commission said that this recommendation is in line with the advice of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC) and the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Tuesday’s communication also sets out a number of enabling policy conditions which are necessary to achieve the 90 percent target.
The starting point is the full implementation of the existing legislation to reduce emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030. The Commission said it is engaging with Member States, industry and social partners to facilitate the necessary action.
Setting a 2040 climate target will help European industry, investors, citizens and governments to make decisions in this decade that will keep the EU on track to meet its climate neutrality objective in 2050.
It will also boost Europe’s resilience against future crises, and notably strengthen the EU’s energy independence from fossil fuel imports, which accounted for more than 4 percent of GDP in 2022 as the bloc faced the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine. \
The costs and human impacts of climate change are increasingly large, and visible. In the last five years alone, climate-related economic damage in Europe is estimated at EUR170 billion. The Commission’s impact assessment finds that, even by conservative estimates, higher global warming as a result of inaction could lower the EU’s GDP by about 7 PERCENT by the end of the century.
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