The EU’s ambitious green agenda is at risk of stalling as the disruption associated with the economic transition begins to bite – and as Europe faces a barrage of extreme weather events.
Deadly floods in Valencia last month were a reminder that climate change is causing environmental disasters to become more severe and more frequent, and that the worst is still to come.
At the same time, farmers, businesses and consumers who were unprepared for the costs of the transition have stepped up pressure on political parties, which in turn are agitating to weaken the Green Deal.
The EU’s climate legislation, the landmark of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s first mandate, is caught in the middle: already too ambitious to pull off a painless transition, but not yet ambitious enough to achieve its goals.
Under the European Climate Law, passed in 2021, the EU legally committed itself to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as foreseen in the Paris Agreement, while also aiming to reduce emissions by 55 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030.
But without further legislation to implement these goals, they’re likely to be missed.
“We are not on track to meet the 2030 climate and energy targets, let alone the goals of the Paris Agreement,” says Lorelei Limousin, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace’s European unit.
Of cars and cattle
The fight over internal combustion engines, whose sale in Europe is due to be effectively banned from 2035, is emblematic of how the Green Deal goes too far for some interest groups, and not far enough for others.
For Limousin, emissions from cars and vans – currently 15 per cent of the EU’s total emissions – must be brought down by 2028 to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming below 1.5C. “If you do it later like the EU is planning to do, then it means that you need more policies and measures in the transport sector to reduce emissions,” she says.
On the other hand, members of Von der Leyen’s own European People’s Party (EPP) are calling for that target to be revised. “Europe is driving its automotive industry towards a dead end,” MEP Jens Gieseke said in February last year.
Earlier this year, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also called the plans “‘ideological madness” that her government will “correct.”
Agriculture is a similarly sensitive subject, with farmers complaining of an excessive burden on their businesses. Environmental campaigners, however, say reforms don’t go far enough.
A report from the European Environment Agency last December found that the EU is “very unlikely” to meet its 2030 targets around agriculture and forestry.
Farming, and particularly raising animals, leads to water, soil and air pollution. The agricultural sector made up 12 per cent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, with meat and dairy production accounting for about two thirds of that.
But farmers, a powerful lobby, have pushed back forcefully against elements of the Green Deal affecting them, with many driving their tractors across the continent to stage regular protests in Brussels over the past year.
The Nature Restoration Law, adopted by the European Parliament in February, foresees restoring 30 per cent of degraded habitats like wetlands by 2030. Restoring this land “leads to greater carbon storage, greater water storage, also even water filtering,” says Patrick ten Brink, secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau, a network of NGOs.
But after farmers expressed concerns about losing valuable agricultural land, the final text made rewetting voluntary for them. Even still, the EPP voted against the law in Parliament, calling the Commission’s initial proposal “ideologically driven” and “a disaster for farmers.”
The EPP has taken chunks out of other laws, too. The Industrial and Livestock Rearing Emissions Directive, which tightens emissions rules for pig and poultry farms, now excludes cattle farms – the biggest source of methane emissions in farming – after pressure from the EPP.
More to come
To meet its 2030 and 2050 goals the EU doesn’t just need to defend the legislation that has already been passed or proposed, says Ten Brink – it needs to go further. On the current trajectory, with laws being weakened or unravelled, “there's not a chance of us meeting the 2030 targets.”
The Fit for 55 package “has to be implemented in its whole, but it also needs to be complemented,” he says, suggesting a green and social investment plan, that, among other things, would invest in heat pumps and solar power for households.
As Von der Leyen’s second term begins in earnest, with her commissioners being confirmed in their roles this week, she faces the challenges of guiding EU climate legislation through a more right-wing Parliament against the background of Europe’s industrial decline, as outlined in former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s recently released competitiveness report.
Asked by The Parliament whether the EU is on track to meet its climate goals, a spokesperson for the Commission pointed to Von der Leyen’s political guidelines for her second term in which she states that the EU will “stay the course on all of our goals.”
In this context, the Commission president has suggested a “Clean Industrial Deal” to create the right conditions for companies to reach climate goals. The specific policies, though, have yet to be determined.
Von der Leyen’s political guidelines and the mission letters to her commissioners-designate show a continued commitment to the Green Deal, though defence and competitiveness have moved up the priority list, Ten Brink says. “The Clean Industrial Deal is not a replacement for the Green Deal; it's an additional step to help implement a Green Deal.”
The Commission also plans to enshrine a 90 per cent emission reduction target for 2040 into law, creating another milestone toward the 2050 net-zero goal. Wopke Hoekstra, the commissioner-designate for climate action, is tasked with phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, helping the EU reduce dependencies, and addressing the rising trend of climate disinformation.
With current global climate policies projected to lead to global warming of more than 3C, according to the latest UN report, there’s no time to lose. “This is only the beginning,” Ten Brink says.