By Elishya Perera
BRUSSELS (CU)_ The European Union reached a tentative climate agreement on the eve of the US-led climate summit, which is expected to make the bloc carbon neutral by mid-century.
“Our political commitment to becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050 is now also a legal commitment,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. She noted that the provisional political agreement, known as the European Climate Law, sets the EU “on a green path for a generation”.
Under the deal, reached after 14 hours of negotiations, the 27-nation bloc vows to slash its carbon emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. Up to now, the EU’s target for 2030 remained at 40 per cent. However, with a more environmentally-conscious international community over increasing evidence of climate change, the EU legislature decided to expand its target to 60 per cent.
“We are very happy with the provisional deal reached today” Portuguese Environment Minister João Pedro Matos Fernandes said. “The European climate law is ‘the law of laws’ that sets the frame for the EU’s climate-related legislation for the 30 years to come. The EU is strongly committed to becoming climate neutral by 2050 and today we can be proud to have set in stone an ambitious climate goal that can get everyone’s support.”
He added that the agreement sends a strong signal to the world, right ahead of the US-led summit on Thursday.
The United States, the world’s second largest polluter, is also set to announce its new targets for 2030, at the conference which will be convened by President Joe Biden. The Associated Press reported that Washington plans to vow to slash the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030, and this ambitious commitment is expected to be announced at the gathering.
The United States and the EU, along with many other countries across the globe, aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, which is the goal that need to be reached in order to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
While the new target set out by Brussels will be welcomed at the summit on Thursday, however, the deal still needs to be ratified to be member states and the legislature in order to take effect.
