Twice the work in half the time: EU calls for 90% cut of GHG emissions by 2040
The European Commission set an intermediate step on the path to 2050 climate neutrality. An incredibly detailed impact assessment explains how member states would concretely reach this ambitious goal.
On February 6th, the European Commission published a detailed impact assessment outlining possible pathways to reach the agreed goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050. Based on this assessment, the Commission recommended a 90% net greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. A legislative proposal will be presented by the next Commission, after the European elections at the end of June, and has to be agreed with the European Parliament and member states. The recommendation, indeed, states that its purpose is to launch the political debate.
The document is required under the European climate law and aligns with the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. Thus, it does not propose new policy measures or set new sector-specific targets: instead, it is an interim target on the way towards the EU’s wider goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. This target follows the EU’s existing target of cutting emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
“The document is very well done and consists of 800 pages, of which the first 200 are really significant. Not even the IPCC has ever produced such an accurate cost-benefit analysis of a climate objective, supported by unprecedented policy detail” said Carlo Carraro, president emeritus and professor of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and member of the Strategic Board of the CMCC, during a webinar organized by the Italian think tank ECCO.
The overarching recommendation from the Commission is based on an assessment of three options for the 2040 target: an “up to” 80% emissions reduction, an 85–90% reduction and a 90–95% reduction. The proposed target is at the bottom end of the 90–95% option that the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change recommended in June 2023 as essential for mitigating climate risks and achieving a sustainable future.
“Considering the international scenario, the scientific committee had suggested even more ambitious levels: other countries, for historical reasons, will cut less emissions than expected. For this reason, the EU and the US should do more in the reduction of carbon emissions” Carraro said, adding “the analysis shows that the benefits of a policy of this kind exceed the costs, even at a macro level, i.e. the level of GDP that would be lost and gained”.
Carbon capture is one of the most sensitive areas of the document: while all three targets require similar levels of investment, the 90–95% option relies more on novel low-carbon technologies, as underlined by CarbonBrief journalists. The Commission highlights that the already adopted policies, which will be fully implemented by 2026, will lead to an emission reduction of 88%. The additional 2% should be achieved essentially through an increase in capture, store and use of CO2.
But what kind of carbon capture? While the forest carbon sequestration remains unchanged across the three scenarios, “the difference lay in the CO2 captured from industrial plants or directly removed from the atmosphere. There is a dose of optimism on the technologies that capture CO2 from industrial plants, also because we are talking about a few million tons. Otherwise, those that remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere are, currently, a gamble. But this is a gamble coupled to important private investments” Carraro said. The analysis notes that the 90% target will also require more raw materials and bring more investment forward to the 2030s.
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