EU abdicates climate leadership with 2040 climate target shot through with loopholes
Today, the European Commission unveiled its 2040 climate target — which was meant to align EU policy with the 1.5°C warming limit. Instead, it arrives weakened by loopholes that risk setting back years of progress.
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Statement from Bill Hare, CEO and Senior Scientist, Climate Analytics:
Today, the European Commission unveiled its 2040 climate target — which was meant to align EU policy with the 1.5°C warming limit. Instead, it arrives weakened by loopholes that risk setting back years of progress.
We assess the 90% net emissions cut by 2040 as 1.5°C aligned. Yet this headline figure obscures a dangerous new precedent: from 2036, up to 3% of the target can be met through international carbon credits, outsourcing Europe’s responsibility rather than cutting emissions at home.
This goes against the EU’s own scientific advisors the ESABCC, which say that international carbon credits should not replace domestic emission reductions when meeting the 2040 target.
The added “flexibility across sectors” could hand big polluters more ways to delay real action. Allowing domestic ‘permanent’ removals to offset residual emissions brings serious risks too — recent evidence suggests natural sinks may be losing their ability to absorb carbon as the climate crisis worsens, so there’s no way to guarantee removals will be permanent. Double counting and fraud are also real threats.
Europe was once a climate counterweight when the US stepped away during Trump's first Presidency. When the US abandoned climate science and leadership under President Trump, the EU stepped forward, forging new alliances and protecting the Paris Agreement. But this new loophole-heavy proposal risks sending the opposite message: that when leadership is needed, Europe abdicates responsibility.
Europe’s citizens expect truth and action, not paper solutions. Positive references to the cost of inaction and a fair transition remain, but they cannot mask loopholes that widen the gap between science and policy.
Europe must deliver real, verifiable cuts at home — not rely on offsets or weakened standards.
