Peter Liese: Important that there’s an agreement finally / Improvements of the details still needed by Parliament
“I am glad that the environment ministers have finally agreed on the climate target for 2040. I consider the agreement on the 2040 target to be acceptable,” said Dr. Peter Liese, climate policy spokesperson for the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP, Christian Democrats). “The 90% target is incredibly ambitious, and I can well understand why flexibility elements, such as the recognition of climate protection efforts abroad, have been included. I also accept that there is a review clause in case nature — for example, through CO₂ sequestration in forests — does not help us as much with climate protection as the European Commission expects. (In fact, the target is an 82% reduction within the European Union. Some countries even have the possibility to achieve further reductions through efforts abroad.) This is still very ambitious compared to many other countries and regions of the world, considering, for example, that Japan has a reduction target of 60% for 2035,” Liese said, assessing the core of the agreement.
“It is a pity that it took so long — and also a pity that the target for 2035 is not as ambitious as the European Parliament wanted,” Liese continued. According to him, the debate unfortunately suffered from too much focus on the 90% target for 2040, while the important target for 2035, which the world is waiting for, played only a secondary role.
Liese finds it very regrettable that member states decided to postpone the emissions trading system for heating and road transport by one year: “This makes it much more difficult to achieve the climate targets for 2030. Companies and individuals who have decided to invest in low-carbon or carbon-free technologies trusting that climate protection is a certainty are now feeling uncertain. Unfortunately, there was also no significant support for ETS2 in the European Parliament from the Social Democrats, Greens and the liberal Renew group.” Liese emphasises that his analysis of the result is initially his personal opinion. The group will now analyse the compromise and will determine its position for the vote in Parliament, which is likely to take place on 13 November.
Personally, Liese believes it is right to follow the Council's lead in terms of the figures. However, he also stressed that Parliament still needs to make some improvements: “Firstly, our industry needs planning security that no climate neutrality target will apply to it in 2039. The existing emissions trading rules must be adjusted to bring them into line with the EU's climate neutrality target for 2050. Emissions trading must be adapted, but under no circumstances should it be abolished, as some in industry are irresponsibly demanding. Secondly, we must do more than the Council has done to ensure that climate protection efforts in third countries are truly credible. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that countries such as France do not want to finance any additional climate protection efforts in third countries but simply want their existing development aid to be recognised as climate protection. It is well known that France has huge budgetary problems and cannot mobilise any additional money for international climate protection. We must also ensure that by recognising certificates from third countries, we do not support our competitors, such as China. At least on these two points, we as the European Parliament will have to take corrective action.”
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