The European Union remains on the path to meet its greenhouse gas emissions reductions target for 2020, even with a small spike in emissions last year, the European Environment Agency said Tuesday.
The bloc of 28 nations aims by 2020 to cut GHG emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels. It exceeded that target in both 2014 and 2015, according to an EEA report. Emissions in 2014 dropped by 4 percent from the prior year (to 23 percent lower than 1990 levels) courtesy of a warm winter, while preliminary projections show 2015 emissions rose by about 0.7 percent (to 22 percent lower than 1990).
Industrial sites that participate in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) cut their GHG output by 24 percent from 2005 to 2015, compared to a 12 percent reduction by those in the Effort Sharing Decision (ESD), which encompasses transportation, buildings, agriculture, and waste.
Malta was the only EU country that did not meet its 2014 target under the ESD, which sets mandatory national yearly GHG emissions targets from 2013 to 2020. The nation also appears likely to have missed its 2015 target, but anticipates being under the emissions cap by 2020.
However, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, and Luxembourg have not yet taken the steps needed to bring their GHG emissions levels below their 2020 ESD targets, even as they have met their yearly requirements, the report says. Austria said it has prepared “additional measures” that would enable it to meet its 2020 target if put into place on schedule, but the other four nations would have to make use of “flexibilities” allowed under the ESD to do the same.
“They could, for example, transfer excess emission credits generated in the early years of the 2013-2020 period to the later years of the period,” the report says.
The news overall is not quite as optimistic looking out to later years. The rate of emissions reductions appears set to slow after 2020, bringing the EU to 26-29 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. That would be well under the bloc’s target of a 40 percent reduction in that four-decade spread.
The numbers, though, do not reflect planned reforms of the Emissions Trading Scheme or policy measures that could be put into place, including additional mandatory EU member states emissions targets for 2021-2030; bringing the land use, land-use change, and forestry sector under the aegis of the EU 2030 Energy Framework; and development of a continental plan for reducing transport industry emissions. Additional EU energy efficiency and renewable energy development measures are also expected this fall, the report says.
Further activities will be needed to meet the EU’s energy and decarbonization targets through 2050, the agency said. “The pace of GHG emission reductions after 2020 should actually increase in order to achieve targets, rather than slow down as is currently projected by Member States. Assuming the necessary emission cuts required to achieve the 2030 target actually take place, an even deeper reduction must be achieved between the 2030 target level (– 40 % below 1990 levels) and the EU objective for 2050 (at least – 80 % below 1990 levels). This reduction will have to be two to three times greater than the decrease necessary between current levels and the 2030 target, which is itself greater than the one achieved since 1990.)