The European Green Deal itself is not a piece of legislation but a set of agreed objectives. Achieving these will require sweeping new rules
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS, policymakers and delegates from European cities are gathering for the European Union’s Green Week, an annual talking-shop. This year’s event is dedicated to finding ways to stop pollution of the air, water and soil . This objective aligns with another adopted by the EU as part of the European Green Deal. The deal emerged from the European Commission in December 2019. It is the bloc’s most ambitious attempt to date to counter climate change and environmental degradation.
The deal itself is not a piece of legislation but a set of agreed objectives. Achieving these will require sweeping new rules. The most important of these is a European climate law which enshrines the 2050 net-zero emissions goal, the details of which were agreed by European politicians in April 2021, including an interim obligation for member states to cut their emissions by “at least” 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.
The European Green Deal also demands masses of cash. The investment plan that supports it proposed €1trn of investment across ten years. Of that, roughly half is meant to come from Europe’s emissions-trading system and the EU budget. Within the budget, much of the promised funding seems to have been conjured up by relabelling money that would have been spent anyway, for example on infrastructure and agriculture. The rest relies on mobilising unprecedented amounts of private investment.
Surprisingly, the covid-19 pandemic may go some way to overcoming these disagreements. Countries hoping for a cut of the €672.5bn-worth of grants and loans in the bloc’swill have to spend it on Brussels-approved plans, with 37% earmarked for climate-friendly spending and all subject to a “do no harm” principle which should, in theory, stop the money being used for projects that work against climate objectives. The need for cash might bring even the most recalcitrant countries in line.
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