The EU’s bizarre new climate change targets

In recent years, governments have increasingly opted to legislate to ensure they do the things they say they are going to do. In the UK, for example, the commitment to allocate 0.7 per cent of GDP to the international aid budget is legally binding, and in 2019 the UK became the first major economy to pass laws to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The peculiar aspect of these laws is that Parliament is still supreme, and so a future government can repeal any laws it finds inconvenient.

In reality, these legal targets have two effects. First, they help governments resist pressure from their backbenchers, for example when it comes to slashing international aid. Second, to a small extent they bind the hands of future governments by forcing them to have to publicly resile from these commitments. At least, however, future governments theoretically have the option to abandon their targets.

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Not so in the EU, where the European Commission is apparently planning to increase their CO2 reduction target, despite opposition from several states. Currently, the EU target for emissions is a 40 per cent cut against 1990 levels by 2030. Next week the Commission will propose increasing that to either 50 or 55 per cent, with most observers predicting the higher target will be chosen.

The groundwork for this decision was laid back in March when the Commission published an ‘impact assessment’ study, with one observer suggesting it was ‘politically pre-defined’.

Many countries are unhappy about this, especially in Eastern Europe which still heavily relies on coal power. Poland, Czechia, Bulgaria and Romania are all still dependent on coal generation. Some estimates put the cost of this increase for Poland alone at €30bn (£27 billion).