‘Emissions will have to be cut at home’

March 24, 2020 / By mobanmarket

‘Emissions will have to be cut at home’

The EU can meet its climate targets without revolutionary targets, says Hedegaard

Connie Hedegaard, the first European commissioner for climate action, is cautious about looking 40 years ahead. Forty years ago, in 1971, she was at school.  “40 years ago was before the first energy crisis in Europe. Who had ever heard of wind turbines?” she asks. “Or sun power that could generate anything? Who had heard of CCS technology, even 20 years ago?” 

However, as she draws up a low-carbon strategy for Europe in 2050, she believes that the EU can meet its climate targets “without revolutionary technologies that nobody has heard of”. The point of the Commission’s roadmap to a low-carbon economy is to show governments, businesses and investors the direction of travel, she says, not to set out “a detailed catalogue for every sector”.

The EU has long promised to cut its emissions by 80%-95% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The pledge was reaffirmed by EU leaders earlier this month (4 February).

For Hedegaard, this means that Europe will have to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050 through its own efforts, without relying on buying-up carbon credits from abroad. She warns governments against relying on meeting the target by “offsetting”, ie, paying for clean-energy projects outside Europe – an easy, but controversial way to reduce emissions. “If we say domestically that we did 80%, then in this range of 80%-95%, there could still be some offsetting that could be done. But it is important not to believe that offsetting will do half the job,” she says.

Domestic efforts would have to represent “the bulk” of emissions reductions, especially because offsets will become more expensive. “In a world where not only Eu

rope but a lot of other regions all have plans to become more energy efficient, when you come to 2040 there might not be a lot of cheap offsetting,” she warns.

Intensified efforts

But a shift away from offsets would need a serious intensification in Europe’s climate-change efforts. At the moment EU member states can meet between half and two-thirds of their 2020 targets by buying up carbon credits outside Europe, according to an analysis of EU climate laws by WWF, an environment group.

Critics of offsetting argue that they do not always bring genuine cuts in emissions, and some complain that the practice blunts incentives to invest in low-carbon technologies in Europe.

The Commission’s road-map will stress the importance of early investment in low-carbon infrastructure to avoid paying more later. That is particularly true for the power-generation industry. “If you take too many decisions now that are not consistent with where you need to be, then you are wasting a lot of money, because it will end up being very, very costly to undo,” Hedegaard warns.

The commissioner defends Europe’s emission trading system, still suffering from a reputation marred by recent cyber fraud. “I don’t think it will do lasting damage,” she says. “Banks are being robbed, but that does not mean that our banking system doesn’t work.”

She insists that more and more governments are embracing emission trading, citing examples from California to South Korea. “Suddenly [emissions trading] is not just a European debate… Within the next five years we will have significantly more countries trying to drive their innovation along the same lines.”

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