The EU's Climate Targets Will Not Last Long Now

The rollback of the petrol and diesel car ban is just the start of the EU's retreat from Net Zero

My last article here claimed that the EU’s commitment to the climate agenda was being reversed. Yet on the same day, it was revealed that the European Commission is about to create a policy to reduce the bloc’s CO₂ emissions by 90% (relative to 1990) by 2040. That might seem to be a contradiction, but it isn’t.

The EU already had in pace a 2050 ‘climate neutrality’ (EU-speak for ‘Net Zero’) target. And it already has in place a 55% 2030 target. It even has in place a 2035 target of “66.25-72.5 % below 1990 levels by 2035”, according to the bloc’s submissions to the Paris Agreement’s ‘Nationally-Determined Contribution’ mechanism. All of these targets are summarised here.