Brussels – The European Union may not meet most of the environmental and climate targets set for 2030. Sounding the alarm is the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its monitoring report of the Union’s environmental policy framework released today (Dec. 18), which now says it is “difficult” to meet the EU Commission’s targets by the end of the decade. “Our analysis shows that member states urgently need to strengthen actions to achieve Europe’s environmental and climate ambitions by 2030,” warns the agency’s executive director, Leena Ylä-Mononen, outlining the 8th Environment Action Program‘s initial findings: “This includes full implementation of existing laws, increased investment in future-proof technologies, and the need to make sustainability a central element in all policies.”
Today’s is the first in a series of annual monitoring reports on progress toward the 2030 environmental and climate goals, based on 28 indicators divided into 8 macro-areas: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, regenerative circular economy, zero pollution and toxic-free environment, biodiversity and ecosystems, environmental and climate pressures related to EU production and consumption, enabling conditions, and living well, within planetary boundaries. According to the EU Agency’s analysis, only five indicators are “highly likely” to achieve the 2030 target, and three others “likely but uncertain”. Another five indicators are “highly unlikely” and the remaining 15 “unlikely but uncertain”. Therefore, “member states may need more time to take measures” to meet environmental and climate targets, since many “require a pace of progress two to nine times faster through 2030, compared to progress over the past 10 years.”
While the situation seems quite positive in terms of enabling conditions with only one out of five indicators “unlikely but uncertain” (the reduction of fossil fuel subsidies), the critical point is environmental and climate pressures related to EU production and consumption: in this area, none of the indicators are given as potentially achievable by 2030. Targets of reducing primary and final energy consumption levels to 992.5 and 763 million tons of oil equivalent, respectively, of doubling the percentage of use of circular materials compared to 2020, and of growing 25 percent of EU-wide agricultural land organically are “highly unlikely”. On the other hand, those on achieving the target of at least 42.5 percent energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption and increasing the share of collective transport modes are “unlikely but uncertain”.
Not particularly positive either is the scenario outlined in the ‘climate adaptation’, ‘regenerative circular economy’, and ‘biodiversity and ecosystems’ macro-areas, where all indicators are at the “unlikely but uncertain” stage. In the first area, there is a reference to targets for both reduction in overall monetary losses due to weather and climate events and reduction in the drought-affected areas and loss of vegetation productivity. The reduction in the amount of raw materials needed for products consumed in the EU and the significant reduction in the total amount of waste produced belong to the second area. Finally, four environmental goals are included in the biodiversity and ecosystems area: legal protection of at least 30 percent of the EU’s land area, 30 percent of the EU’s marine area, reversing the decline of populations of common birds, and increasing the degree of connectivity of forest ecosystems.
At the same time, “the prospects for meeting several other monitoring targets for 2030 look positive,” the EU agency notes. For example, “it is very likely that the share of the green economy in the overall economy will continue to increase and that premature deaths attributable to exposure to fine particulate matter will decrease.” The reference is to the three environmental goals considered ‘highly likely’ in the macro-area ‘living well, within the planet’s boundaries’ (which also includes increasing the share of employment in green sectors) and the macro-area ‘zero pollution and toxic-free environment’, respectively. Achieving the targets of reducing nutrient losses by at least 50 percent in safe groundwater resources, reducing water scarcity, non-net land consumption by 2050, and reducing environmental inequalities in an equitable transition, however, remain more complex, while the one on significantly reducing the EU’s consumption footprint is almost impossible.
More uncertain is the area of ‘climate change mitigation’, where reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 according to the European Green Deal targets is ‘likely but uncertain’, but the increase in net GHG removals by carbon sinks from the LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry) sector to -310 million tons of CO2 equivalent by the end of the decade is ‘highly unlikely’.
