Fit for 55%?

September 16, 2021  

By Imke Lübbeke

Head of Climate and Energy, WWF European Policy Office

Students from Stellendam on the beach at the estuary of the Haringvliet, the Netherlands.

IMAGE: WWF Netherlands

The EU’s new target may be higher, but it is still nowhere near enough to tackle climate change. UN figures show we need to cut emissions by 65% by 2030 in the EU (without including carbon dioxide removal) to contribute to keeping global temperature rise to 1.5°C - the limit countries agreed to under the Paris Agreement, to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The EU’s Fit for 55% package is an opportunity to go further and usher in a fundamental systemic change, shifting towards societies which are climate-neutral and sustainable, with people, their lives and wellbeing not pushed to one side, but put at the centre.

While the EU is not the only player and cannot solve the climate problem on its own, it is one of the biggest markets in the world and it needs to lead by example through the capacities it has on finance, knowledge and institutions to trigger the necessary change.

What’s more, the EU has already set the wheels in motion with its Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality and restore nature. But the final shape of the Fit for 55% package will show whether the ambitions of the Green Deal will actually be translated into science-based actions.

One of the key issues concerns the overall structure of how the EU’s emissions reductions are divided, counted and monitored. Until now, this has been divided into three parts: emissions reductions in the power and energy-intensive sectors, which come under the EU’s carbon market (the Emissions Trading System or ETS); emissions reductions in sectors like transport, agriculture and waste, which are covered by binding national targets under a law called the ‘Effort-Sharing Regulation’; and the land use and forestry sectors (the ‘LULUCF Regulation’), which have to ensure that carbon emitted is balanced by the same amount removed from the atmosphere.

This structure has worked well until now, and should not be changed unless it follows the Commission’s proposal in the Fit for 55% package to include emissions from shipping and aviation under the ETS. This is because emissions from those sectors make up a crucial and growing part of our climate footprint.

The EU must also ensure that road transport and heating remain governed under national binding targets. The risk if they are added to an EU ETS - as the Commission has proposed –  is that companies will pass the prices onto consumers, whose fuel and heating bills would go up. This would have consequences for people like Silvija, Gabriel, Piotr, Eva and Sean - on people like all of us - which may be difficult to manage and compensate for. Sectoral policies are the most effective ways to address emissions in the road, transport and buildings sectors, accompanied by carbon pricing at national level.

This is not the only thing that needs to happen under the ETS and for which the Commission’s proposals are worrying. Until now, heavy industry has been able to pollute without paying a price on that pollution, because those industries have received free carbon allowances. These free allowances have, in turn, meant that industries had no incentive to invest in cleaner technologies. Free allocation must end and we must move to 100% auctioning of those allowances so that polluters are forced to decarbonise, find clean methods of production and offer sustainable jobs. The Commission’s proposal to extend free allocation until 2035 is, therefore, unacceptable. The revenues that trading of allowances generate for Member States must be re-invested into the economic transition to climate neutrality and new solutions, boosting clean markets and products.

Felled trees in the Białowieza Forest, Poland.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

People's Climate March in Rome, Italy.

IMAGE: WWF Intl. / Antonio Amendola / The Stand

Finally, the EU’s targets are too low and should be pushed upwards. The climate target should be 65% emissions reductions by 2030, as mentioned above. But on top of that, the 2030 energy efficiency target, currently 32.5% should be increased to 45% at least. This would be a clear message from the EU that it wants to put people’s health and wellbeing first, since increasing energy efficiency helps ease heating bills and home pollution, in addition to helping the planet. Similarly, the EU’s renewable energy target for 2030, currently only 32%, must be revised upwards to at least 50% to ensure it contributes as much as possible towards reducing emissions.

These changes may appear bold, but they are what the science shows we have to do to keep temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid the economically and socially devastating impacts of climate catastrophe. And they are not pie in the sky: the EU has already committed to ‘build back better’ from the Coronavirus pandemic with recovery spending of €1.8 trillion and to make the Green Deal the “motor” of this economic recovery, in the words of Commission President Von der Leyen.

The competitiveness of renewables such as solar and wind power, the huge public support for action on climate and nature, and the EU’s political commitment and public funding all mean that this can absolutely become reality.

If the EU can make a Fit for 55% package which is fit for a 1.5°C world, it will be taking a massive step forwards for Silvija, Gabriel, Piotr, Eva and Sean, as well as for all Europeans and beyond. It will be living up to its Green Deal and the commitment EU Commission President Von der Leyen made for the Green Deal to become the “motor of Europe’s economic recovery”. It will show other countries - who will all meet in November at the COP26 climate summit in the UK - that acting on climate and transforming the economy can go hand in hand with a people-centred, democratic, sustainable and affluent society.

The European Policy Office contributes to the achievement of WWF’s global mission by leading the WWF network to shape EU policies impacting on the European and global environment.

Keep track of our work on

www.wwf.eu and Twitter (@WWFEU)