Juncker investment plan: MEPs fail to improve Commission's proposal on climate change

15 May 2017
by WWF -- last modified 15 May 2017

In a vote today, Members of the European Parliament failed to improve the European Commission's climate proposal in the Juncker investment plan, by rejecting opportunities for an energy efficiency spending target and for ending fossil fuel support.

While endorsing the inclusion of a 40% climate spending target as proposed by the Commission, they completely ignored the vote of the Parliament's Industry Committee on 3 April, where MEPs called for 20% of the climate target to be allocated to support energy efficiency projects.

This largely unnoticed and rather quick regulatory review will extend the Juncker plan until 2020 and increase it to half a trillion Euros. Trilogue negotiations between all three institutions will begin immediately after today's vote.

Commenting on today's vote, Sébastien Godinot, senior economist at WWF European Policy Office, said:

"The Juncker plan should be used for climate action, not for climate destruction. With today's vote, the European Parliament has proved useless on climate change: they rejected a target for energy efficiency projects while maintaining support for fossil fuel projects incompatible with the Paris climate agreement they loudly supported.

EU institutions must wake up to the new reality of the Paris Agreement, and understand that it means putting an end to fossil fuel support. Haemorrhaging piles of public cash in unsustainable projects like gas infrastructure while the EU gas consumption is going down is absolutely nonsense."

The European Policy Office helps shape EU policies that impact on the European and global environment.

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