Brussels: The European Union is attempting to forge new climate goals on Tuesday before the UN climate talks in Brazil starting next week.
Ministers from across the 27-nation bloc are meeting in Brussels to try and get at least 15 to align their nationally-determined emissions targets in order to have a stronger negotiating position during the COP30 summit in Belem.
“We need to show the world that we are leaders in climate change. We need to deliver adequate signals for investors. Today’s the day,” Spanish climate minister Sara Aagesen said before the meeting.
The EU’s long-held leadership on climate action is under threat from domestic and international pressure.
Wildfires, heat waves, and floods have disrupted life across Europe, spurring calls for more climate action. But crises like Russia’s war in Ukraine and a newly volatile relationship with the United States have increased political and economic pressure to curtail flagship environmental policies.
A recent weakening of a deforestation law by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, disturbed environmentalists. They worried that it signalled a deeper disenchantment with green priorities by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In February, she had announced an economic policy that some said eroded her 2019 Green Deal. But von der Leyen said in September that “the world can count on Europe’s climate leadership” and pledged that the EU is “on our way to climate neutrality” and would slash carbon emissions by 90 per cent by 2040.
She has linked climate investment to sovereignty and defence, arguing that a self-reliant Europe can better face threats like disruptive tariffs or export controls, armed conflict and environmental disasters.
Many EU governments have shifted to the right since the Paris Agreement in 2015.