The European Union's scientific advisers urge against counting international carbon credits towards emissions reductions.
With European Union member states very close to meeting the roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the end of this decade, expectations are running high for the next 2040 target. It will be the last interim milestone on the way to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, made legally binding through the climate law. The European Commission will present its proposal on 2 July, but the political and scientific debate is already heated.
Reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — which would be a historic achievement for the continent — inevitably requires a step-by-step approach. The first milestone is minus 55 percent of net emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. Around this target, EU institutions have built an extensive package of measures known as Fit for 55. The good news is that, after some initial uncertainty, member states are moving in the right direction: this is what emerges from the assessment of National Energy and Climate Plans.
As early as 2024, the Commission had recommended setting the 2040 target at minus 90 percent on 1990 levels. A formal announcement had been expected in March of this year, but the Commission chose to take more time. According to Politico, the lukewarm reception from governments and the European Parliament reportedly pushed European Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra to opt for a more flexible approach — opening the door to instruments such as carbon credits.
This is precisely the issue at the heart of deeply opposing positions. The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has published a report confirming the need for a drastic reduction in emissions by 2040, in the order of 90 or even 95 percent compared to 1990. A target that "is both achievable and in Europe's strategic interest", comments Jette Bredahl Jacobsen, vice-chair of the Advisory Board.
In a rather unusual stance, the body calls for no reliance on international offsets. The mechanism works roughly as follows: a state finances a project abroad (linked, for example, to transport electrification or renewable energy) and claims the resulting emissions reduction, counting it towards its own national targets. It is a scheme provided for under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, but one that, according to the Advisory Board, risks proving counterproductive.
"Delaying action or relying on international carbon credits would mean risking the loss of fundamental opportunities to modernise the European Union's economy, create quality jobs and strengthen European leadership in clean technologies", Jacobsen continues. When approached by Politico, European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera preferred not to commit directly, while nonetheless underlining that the 2040 target had been "conceived as domestic".
