EU set to miss UN climate deadline amid internal divisions

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By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union countries’ climate ministers are expected to confirm on Thursday that the bloc will miss a global deadline to set new emissions-cutting targets, owing to divisions among EU governments over its climate plans.

The delay could knock the EU’s international leadership ahead of a United Nations climate summit next week where world leaders are expected to present new goals. The EU will attend without a new target, and miss the end-September U.N. deadline for countries to submit their climate plans. 

Major emitters, including China, are expected to meet the deadline. 

The U.N. has urged countries to bring updated climate plans to its General Assembly next week, in a bid to revive global momentum to tackle climate change. That momentum has been hit by President Donald Trump rolling back the U.S.’s climate commitments, and governments struggling to balance environmental protection alongside economic and geopolitical challenges.

The EU had planned to agree new climate targets for both 2040 and 2035 this month. But countries – including Germany, France and Poland – demanded government leaders first discuss the 2040 goal at a summit in October, derailing talks on both targets.

As a fallback, EU ministers will try on Thursday to agree a “statement of intent” outlining what climate goal the EU eventually hopes to approve. The U.N. refers to countries’ climate plans as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

“This statement of intent, is it as good as an NDC? Probably not. Is it much better than nothing? You bet,” one senior EU official said.     

A draft of the statement, previously reported by Reuters, said the EU would try to agree a target between a 66.3% and a 72.5% emissions reduction by 2035. 

It said the EU would still aim to submit a final 2035 target before the U.N. COP30 climate summit in November – where nearly 200 countries will negotiate their next steps to address global warming.

Linda Kalcher, executive director of think-tank Strategic Perspectives, said failure to do this could weaken ambition at COP30.

“Other countries could use the EU as an excuse for their own inaction,” she said.

EU COUNTRIES DIVIDED

Traditionally, the EU has pushed for ambitious global climate deals, citing its own policies – which are among the world’s most ambitious – as proof it was leading by example.

But rising concerns over the cost of climate measures and pressure to boost defence and industrial spending have triggered pushback from some member states.

EU countries are at odds over a 2040 climate target, which the European Commission proposed should reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 90%.

“We clearly reject the 90% target because we simply do not see the technological path to it,” the Czech Republic’s environment minister Petr Hladik said on Wednesday.

The Czech Republic, alongside countries, including Italy, also wants to weaken existing EU climate policies, including the bloc’s 2035 ban on new CO2-emitting cars.

Other governments, including Spain and Denmark, support stronger climate action, citing the severe heatwaves and wildfires which now blaze across Europe each summer – and the need to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels.

“This is a particularly important year for our international climate commitments, and when the world is debating whether we should continue the energy transition,” Spain’s state secretary for energy, Joan Groizard, said at an EU meeting earlier this month.

“It’s very, very important that Europe agrees on a 90% target for 2040,” he said.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; additional reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Aurora Ellis)