In an effort to slow global warming, the European Union pledged in 2019 to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
Despite the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and the energy crisis associated with it, EU lawmakers continue to push for policies to reduce pollution.
They have written some European Green Deal targets into law and are negotiating others. They’ve added green strings to coronavirus relief packages and scrapped rules blocking clean energy projects.
“Covid didn’t kill the Green Deal,” said Pieter de Pous, a Berlin-based analyst at climate think tank E3G. “It actually made it stronger.”
If the European Union succeeds in cleaning up its economy, it could serve as a model for US polluters in China and show countries in Africa and Asia that one of the world’s richest emitters is taking climate change seriously.
But to what extent is the European Union achieving its goals? And how much more to go?
Together with media partners from the European Data Journalism Network, DW is tracking the blog’s progress in five key areas. This article will be updated regularly as new data becomes available.
Emissions: Reduction of pollution by greenhouse gases
The European Union has reduced annual greenhouse gas pollution by 30% since 1990, mainly by burning less coal. It now wants to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 57% from these levels by the end of the decade.
“The honest truth is that the world is not on track to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” said European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, architect of the Green Deal, which announced the target updated at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in Egypt. From November “We need more ambition.”
But the new target, which is only slightly more ambitious than the original Green Deal cuts of 55%, falls short of the action needed to deliver on the promise to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C ( 2.7 F) above pre-industrial levels. end of century
Climate Action Tracker, a project by two environmental research organizations, found that emissions would need to drop by at least another five percentage points, for a total of more than 62%.
Current member state policies appear to be aimed at reducing emissions by only 36% to 47%.
Power: more renewable energy
The European Union obtains 22% of its energy from renewable sources. Last year, he presented a plan to reach 40% by the end of the decade. Then, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the European Commission said it wanted to raise it again, to 45%. The goal involves a quick and strong push to electrify polluting activities and clean up the continent’s power grid.
The proposal has passed two rounds of legal red tape but still needs to be agreed by member states, who are lobbying to keep the target at 40%.
The European Union has been looking for energy sources to replace gas since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and shut down pipelines. Countries such as Germany, the European Union’s largest economy, have restarted coal-fired power plants, signed decade-long deals with gas producers in Africa and the Middle East, and built terminals to receive gas shipments liquefied natural from abroad. At the same time, Germany and other EU member states have pledged to build more renewable energy sources and make them easier for businesses.
While analysts expect an increase in pollution from burning more coal, they are more concerned about plans to build new fossil gas infrastructure, which could lock in pollution for decades. This could jeopardize the goal of using 45% green energy by 2030.
Power: Electricity from solar panels, wind turbines
The industry expects the European Union to build the infrastructure for 220 GW of solar power and 92 GW of wind power over the next four years, helped by falling prices for renewables. That’s more than the amount expected under some scenarios that keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the London-based climate think tank Ember, which modeled pathways to the target.
“To get out of this crisis, we need a massive influx of reliable, homegrown renewable energy,” said Harriet Fox, solar analyst at Ember. “If the EU is serious about deploying renewable energy, there is no reason why these industry targets cannot be met.”
The outlook for the wind industry is less optimistic than for solar because of the long time it takes to obtain permits and build wind farms. In November, EU member states agreed to shorten the deadlines for granting permits. This means they can skip some of the paperwork to assess a project’s environmental impact, speeding up the time between planning and construction.
Buildings: Heat homes without burning gas
TThe European Union also intends to renovate more buildings and run them on 49% renewable energy by 2030. In a proposal, the European Commission has defended the placement of solar panels in new public and commercial buildings from 2027 and in existing ones from 2028. It wants to do the same with new residential buildings from 2030.
In addition to building infrastructure to produce clean energy, the European Union should electrify activities that run on fossil fuels such as burning gas to heat homes. One of the most effective ways to do this is to replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps.
The European Commission’s model shows that the amount of heat generated by pumps running on renewable electricity should roughly triple by the end of the decade. A preliminary analysis by the Regulatory Assistance Project, a global nonprofit working to decarbonize buildings, found that the pace of installations would need to nearly double. While high gas prices have boosted demand for heat pumps, a lack of trained installers has slowed change.
Transport: Driving cars without burning petrol
The European Commission intends to reduce average CO2 emissions from new cars by 55% by 2030, before reaching zero in 2035. This would be one of the easiest solutions to clean up transport, the only sector where the pollution has increased constantly. Greenhouse gas emissions were 15% higher in 2021 than in 1990.
Some member states, including Germany and Italy, have rejected the target.
Experts say the goal is achievable, if unambitious. Sales of electric vehicles are on the rise. The share of electricity among new cars sold in the European Union increased from 11% in 2020 to 18% in 2021.
If more car trips were shifted to trains, buses and walking, transport emissions could fall even faster.
Agriculture: Farm cleaning
The European Union has made little progress in cleaning up farms, which are responsible for around 10% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. These come in many forms and from different sources: methane from cow burps, nitrous oxide from fertilizers and both from manure.
Two thirds of the European Union’s agricultural emissions come from animals. The EU plans to introduce sustainable feed additives, which can reduce methane from cows and reduce the amount of soya grown on deforested land to feed livestock. According to the European Union, change cannot occur without a change in people’s diet.
This project is an ongoing collaboration between several media outlets of the European Data Journalism Network. While DW was the project leader, Openpolis, Pod Crto, Denik Referendum and VoxEurop are partners. For data, code, and methodology behind this analysis, see this repository.
