The European Commission has announced that the EU should cut its emissions by 90% by 2040, in a proposed change to its climate law that falls short of what its scientists have advised.
The target to cut emissions, which is measured against pollution levels from 1990, is a significant milestone on the EU's path to decarbonise its economy by 2050.
Green groups are furious with the proposal, as it leaves room to count foreign carbon credits, such as planting trees and saving forests, that researchers have often found are ineffective.
The announcement of the legally binding target had been delayed by months after pushback from Member States that found the headline figure of 90% too ambitious.
Wopke Hoekstra, the EU Climate Commissioner, said the discussion around the target had been "politically sensitive" but defended measures introduced to win over national capitals.
The new approach to reaching the target allows the use of domestic carbon removals from the EU's emissions trading system, and offers more flexibility across different sectors of the economy. It also opens the door for limited use of carbon offsets from 2036.
Critics, including scientists, have raised fears of junk offsets that are impossible to verify or that claim carbon savings for projects that may have gone ahead anyway, a concept known as "additionality".
Hoekstra said: "If we don’t manage to do it in a way that is verifiable, certifiable and additional, then you could raise questions on whether it is actually effective".
"But humanity has done more difficult things than this, and I am absolutely convinced that we will pull it off".
The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change had recommended the Commission aim for slightly steeper cuts of 90-95%. It emphasised it should achieve them through "domestic action", which would exclude the use of carbon offsets.
The advisers said such a level of ambition was feasible and would increase the fairness of the EU's contribution to global climate action.
Mohammed Chahim, a Dutch lawmaker and climate lead for the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) grouping said the proposals were little more than window dressing, and raised questions about climate justice: "Europe risks shirking its responsibilities – polluting at home while planting trees abroad to buy a clean conscience".
An EU official defended the proposal, saying the use of international credits was "politically pragmatic and economically rational".
The target would allow carbon credits to make a 3% contribution to emissions reductions, in line with Germany's position, and would be allowed only in the second half of the next decade.
The official said they would "strongly advise" against buying credits in the current voluntary carbon market, but new carbon trading rules finalised at COP29 provided a very different context. They added: "Still, a lot of work is needed to get all this right".
The target would need to be agreed by Member States and passed by the EU parliament before being translated into a target for 2035 under UN climate treaties. The EU has to submit a new climate action plan before COP30 in Brazil in November.
The target comes amid a broader rollback of environment policy in the EU, which campaigners say is gaining momentum. The deregulation drive has shocked observers with its scale and speed.
Some industry groups were also dismayed by the proposals. The European Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) said it supported the goal of climate neutrality by 2050, but found the proposed 90% target "a disproportionate and unrealistic" acceleration of the ambition.
Hans Grünfeld, President of IFIEC, said: "An overly steep reduction curve ignores this reality and runs the risk of accelerating de-industrialisation in Europe and massively importing CO2 emissions".
Green groups said the target fell short of the EU's responsibilities as one of the world's biggest historical emitters of greenhouse gases. Colin Roche, Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator at Friends of the Earth Europe, said: "The European Commission will try to portray this as an ambitious step forward, but the reality is we are fast running out of room to achieve the Paris agreement".
"This target is in line neither with climate science nor with climate justice".
Thomas Gelin, a campaigner at Greenpeace EU, said the EU had a historical responsibility to cut emissions at home: "The EU’s 2040 climate targets should drive a shift away from fossil fuels, starting with an EU ban on new fossil fuel projects, towards renewables and energy saving, to cut people’s energy bills, make their homes easier to heat and cool, and clean the air they breathe".
"Instead, the European Commission relies on dodgy accounting and offshore carbon laundering to pretend to hit the lower bound of what its climate scientists advise".
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