UN climate talks

EU environment ministers today formally agreed to submit the EU's 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target of 40% to the UN climate change convention (UNFCCC). Commenting on the decision, Green spokesperson on the UN climate talks Yannick Jadot said:

"EU environment ministers have today confirmed Europe's lack of ambition and set the bar low for this year's crucial UN climate summit in Paris (COP21) by submitting the 40% greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030.

"The 40% target, which was agreed by heads of state and government last year, is far off what the EU should be doing to meet its goal of limiting the increase in global temperatures to below 2 degrees. This is both irresponsible from a climate change perspective and will also undermine the EU's credibility in the UN negotiations. Combined with the fact that no step has been made to close the loopholes in the EU's greenhouse gas measurement system, notably from forests and land use, it shows the EU is not taking the challenge seriously.

"We will need to up the public pressure to ensure this is not the final position of the EU. The agreed target was for a reduction of 'at least' 40%: this room for manoeuvre must be used to up the ambition."