The European Commission has presented on 4 March the Climate Law which represents EU’s political commitment to be climate neutral by 2050 and it has also launched a public consultation on the future European Climate Pact.
With the European Climate Law the EU Institutions and the Member States are collectively bound to take the necessary measures at EU and national level to meet the target.
“We are acting today to make the EU the world’s first climate neutral continent by 2050. The Climate Law is the legal translation of our political commitment and sets us irreversibly on the path to a more sustainable future. It is the heart of the European Green Deal,” EC President Ursula von der Leyen said.
The EC will propose a new 2030 EU target for greenhouse gas emission reductions and the Climate Law will be amended once the impact assessment is completed.
By June 2021, the Commission will review, and where necessary propose to revise, all relevant policy instruments to achieve the additional emission reductions for 2030.
A 2030-2050 EU-wide trajectory for GHG reduction is proposed measure progress and give predictability to public authorities, businesses and citizens. Starting 2023, and every five years thereafter, the Commission will assess the consistency of EU and national measures with the climate-neutrality objective and the trajectory.
As the EC will be empowered to issue recommendations to Member States whose actions are inconsistent with the climate-neutrality objective, they will be obliged to take improvement actions or to explain their reasoning if they fail. The Commission can also review the adequacy of the trajectory and the Union wide measures.
In addition. the EU states will be required to develop and implement adaptation strategies to strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to the effects of climate change.
The Law includes measures to keep track of progress and adjust the actions accordingly, based on existing systems such as the governance process for Member States’ national energy and climate plans, regular reports by the European Environment Agency, and the latest scientific evidence on climate change and its impacts.
Progress will be reviewed every five years, in line with the global stocktake exercise under the Paris Agreement.
The public consultation on a new European Climate Pact will be opened until 27 May and the inputs will be used to shape the Climate Pact, which will be launched before the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow in November 2020 (COP26).
Future policies include the adoption of a proposal to designate 2021 as the European Year of Rail to highlight the benefits for the climate of increasing passenger and freight use of the rail network.
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