The European Commission today recommended Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by 90 percent by 2040 compared to 1990 levels.
At first glance, it is an ambitious goal to transform the European Union's energy system. However, as always, the devil is in the details. And the proposed plan is already generating a number of strong reactions.
A formal proposal still needs to be issued, but it has already faced criticism over how much of those pollution cuts should come from brinkmanship tactics aimed at capturing instead of preventing pollution. Some environmental groups also criticize a glaring omission in the draft: While it mentions phasing out coal, there is no strategy to phase out oil and gas.
“It's like building a bicycle without pedals, how are you going to propel it?”
“You can set targets to reduce greenhouse gases as much as you want, but without a clear plan to phase out the fossil fuels that produce them, they are simply not credible. It’s like building a bicycle without pedals, how are you going to propel it?” Dominic Eagleton, senior fossil fuel campaigner at the nonprofit Global Witness, said in a statement today.
In fact, the world came tantalizingly close to an agreement to phase out fossil fuels during a United Nations climate conference in Dubai last December. Even as dozens of countries push for that kind of commitment, the agreement ultimately calls for “the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a fair, orderly and equitable manner.” It also leaves room for controversial technologies to capture carbon dioxide pollution.
Taking a closer look at the new EU climate roadmap to 2040, about 8 percent Of the total, 90 percent of emissions reductions could be achieved through carbon capture and removal (which would reduce the real-world reduction target to 82 percent). It means relying on emerging technologies that have not yet been tested at scale to absorb and store planet-warming CO2.
The United States released to strategy document to capture carbon dioxide emissions today alongside the 2040 plan. “European industry is working hard to reduce its emissions, but there are certain sectors where processes are particularly difficult to adapt and changes are expensive to implement. For this reason, we must drive innovation in technologies to capture, transport and store carbon, to turn them into an effective climate solution,” European Commission Executive Vice President Maroš Šefčovič said in a press release.
The new strategy document sets a huge target for carbon capture: by 2040, the EU would need to be able to store 280 million metric tons of captured carbon dioxide per year. By 2030, the EU should be able to store the equivalent of Sweden's annual CO2 emissions, approximately 50 million metric tons of greenhouse gas.
For context, the roughly two dozen industrial plants around the world designed to filter CO2 from ambient air were able capture less than 0.01 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year. (The edge He envisioned the disturbing scale of the carbon removal problem in 2022, and the needle hasn't moved much since.) It costs about $600 per metric ton to remove that CO2 from the atmosphere, making it a prohibitively expensive undertaking right now.
Of course, it wouldn't just be newfangled carbon removal plants that would do all the work. The 2040 goal also includes similarly expensive technologies installed in power plants and other pollution sources that are supposed to capture a portion of the CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels before it can escape into the environment.
“If you rely too much (on carbon capture and storage), it's like assuming there will be that investment in it. And then there's concern that it's just an excuse to start up more gas plants or keep them running longer,” says Sarah Brown, European program director at energy think tank Ember.
Still, he says the Commission's 2040 plan “in short, is very encouraging. I mean, the fact that they are setting goals is important.”
There is still time for the proposal to change with the European Parliament elections in June. After the elections, a new Commission could present a revised proposal which would then have to be approved by the European Parliament and the European Council. Today's recommendation was already weaker than a previously leaked draft, reflecting farmers protests against stricter climate measures.
The 2040 target is a provisional target, after a commitment by the EU to reduce emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 and then to net zero emissions by 2050. All of that is in line with what is necessary to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, which aims to stop climate change while humanity still has a good chance to adapt to the challenges. He US and PorcelainThe world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters have made similar commitments to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century, although passing policies to make that happen is another story that is still in the works.
