While Europe is groaning under a heatwave, the European Commission announced its long overdue and heavily trailed 2040 climate target of a -90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
While this is a step in the right direction, by sneaking in international offsets and leaning heavily on supposed future carbon removals, the European Commission has built loopholes into the heart of the proposal, including one that would undermine its Emissions Trading System. This turns a serious plan to cut emissions into a cleverly disguised facade.
WWF regrets the fact that the Commission has only proposed a 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. As WWF indicated in its latest ‘2040 Horizon’ report this figure is less than the EU’s fair share to limit climate warming to 1.5°C and is not in line with the Paris Agreement.
In addition, by including the possibility of using international offsets, which is not allowed in the 2030 and 2050 targets, the Commission has opened a serious loophole and set aside the scientific evidence of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC). The Scientific Body concluded that such international credits should under no circumstances be part of the emission reduction target and that the majority of international offsets did not actually reduce emissions, with as little as 16% of them being effective.
“According to the ESABCC the evidence is clear: most international offsets aren’t worth the paper they’re written on and have done nothing to cut emissions. They’re also a waste of taxpayers’ money: if we want to enhance our competitiveness, it doesn’t make sense to spend billions of euros helping other countries decarbonise when we could be investing in the future of our European industry and its workers here at home,” said Michael Sicauld-Clyet, Climate Policy Officer at WWF EU.
International offsets are not the only flexibility the European Commission has included in the proposal; another example is the foreseen inclusion of ‘permanent’ carbon removals in the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS), a cornerstone of Europe’s climate action architecture. Including such removals would undermine the system’s integrity and lower the incentive to cut emissions in heavy industry. Given the flaws in the methodologies currently under consideration, so-called ‘permanent removals’ may turn out to be nothing of the sort, and instead constitute activities that actually harm Europe’s natural carbon sink.
WWF strongly opposes this decision and instead advocates for three separate targets, namely for emission reductions, nature-based removals and permanent removals, to avoid removals replacing the drastic cuts in emissions that are needed and to differentiate clearly between the role of different types of removals.
“The EU must not let its future be held hostage by polluters unwilling to decarbonise and looking for shortcuts. The ETS has finally reached a meaningful carbon price, making it a more powerful climate tool. It’s now capable of doing its job, which means driving emissions cuts in industry sectors. While all eyes are on decarbonisation investments in industrial sectors in order to ensure that EU industry remains competitive globally, the last move the European Commission should make is damaging the future ETS price signal,” said Camille Maury, Senior Policy Officer Industry Decarbonisation at WWF EU.
Unfortunately, despite increasing droughts and floods in recent years and the current heatwave gripping Europe, the Commission has also decided not to strengthen Article 5 on climate adaptation under the Climate Law, missing the opportunity to reinforce requirements for Member States to enhance their resilience. We urge the Commission to address this gap in the European Climate Adaptation package, expected at the end of 2026.
