New EU climate targets: eighteen hours of talks, minor concessions and Czechia opposed

After exceptionally lengthy negotiations, environment ministers agreed to weaken the 2040 climate targets and set a new climate plan for 2035. The new 2035 plan envisages a reduction in European carbon emissions of between 66.25% and 72.5% compared with 1990.

The plan is not legally binding, but is intended to set the direction of European climate policy for the next several years. According to POLITICO, its figures correspond to an informal declaration the EU presented at the climate summit in New York in September, and are intended to precede COP30 talks, which begin next week in Brazil.

Much attention has focused on a concession by the European Commission, which allowed the 2040 targets to be reduced from the originally proposed 90% compared with 1990 to (de facto) 85%, with countries able to shift the remaining five percentage points outside their territory by purchasing international carbon “credits”. These would then fund, for example, forest planting or a transition from coal to solar power plants in the developing world. Countries can also reduce a further five percentage points from their national targets in the same way.