According to the climate report: does the EU need to act even faster?

The latest world climate report made it clear how fast climate change is advancing. What does this mean for the EU and its climate plans? Does it have to act faster than planned?

For the Greens in the European Parliament, the matter is clear: the EU must not lose any time. It should immediately draw conclusions from the report that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has presented on the pace of global warming. The climate catastrophe is already part of everyday life, say MPs from southern Europe, in Greece the burning forests, in southern Italy entire nature reserves in danger.

The German Green MP Michael Bloss names the heavy rain in Germany. The climate catastrophe can be grasped with hands. “That’s why we have to act now,” demands Bloss. “We need a special EU climate summit so that an EU immediate climate program can be adopted!”

There is a program – on paper

The EU has already called many special summits, some of them on a regular basis for over a year. But it was almost always about the corona pandemic. The Brussels Commission has no special meeting in preparation for the climate crisis at the moment; reference is made to the existing “Fit for 55” program, the package of measures with a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gases by 55 percent by 2030.

But the program still has to be negotiated with the 27 member countries. And that can take time. Up to two years – quite a few in Brussels expect that. Too late, says MEP Michael Bloss, he wants to prevent the implementation of “Fit for 55” nothing happens. “We can already decide now that we will put an end to coal in 2030,” suggests Bloss and lists further immediate measures that, in his opinion, could be implemented without hesitation.

In the first place, one could cut the subsidies for coal, oil and gas – from his point of view these have long been the wrong economic incentives. And then immediately expand renewable energies. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister and CDU candidate for Chancellor Laschet did the exact opposite “with the de facto end of the expansion of wind energy”.

“Too late for common places”

Even in the respected think tank Agora Energiewende, one sees no reason to make the change of course in climate policy dependent on further consultations and negotiations. “The scientists from the IPCC have made one thing clear,” says Matthias Buck, director of the think tank, “we now need concrete climate protection measures immediately. It is no longer enough to proclaim platitudes that climate protection is important. It is simply too late for that!”

Germany, as the largest economy in the EU, needs an immediate climate protection program, demands Buck and says what could be written into it immediately. The phase-out of coal not only in 2038, but as early as 2030 – that is also the top priority for the energy expert. This would save more than 200 million tons of CO2.

Expand renewable energies even faster

The rate of expansion in renewable energies must be tripled. The standards for buildings should be consistently geared towards climate neutrality. “There is a lot to be done,” says energy expert Buck and makes it clear that, from his point of view, the next federal government is crucial: “I would like citizens and companies to use the weeks remaining until the federal elections to get away from it all to find out to their constituency candidates which concrete steps they want to take to accelerate climate protection? “

Also in the area of ​​transport, because there the CO2 emissions in Germany have not decreased, but still increased significantly. The Brussels Commission should therefore once again tighten the fleet limits for cars and commercial vehicles significantly and, above all, tighten them more quickly. “We need ambitious interim goals, from 2025 to 2030. Otherwise we will run into a situation where individual automotive groups would still sell fuel-guzzling SUVs by the end of the decade.”

And finally, the industry needs targeted funding programs to get away from oil and gas combustion in the production process. “To be clear, fossil gas is not a transition technology,” says the think tank director. “Burning fossil gas contributes to the overheating of the climate. In addition, methane emissions are generated to a considerable extent during extraction and transport. And methane is a very important, short-term driver of climate change – a fire accelerator of climate change, so to speak.”

What does that mean for security of supply?

Back to the European Parliament. The conservative ranks are skeptical of calls for a quick change of course. The CDU MP Markus Pieper, a member of the Industry and Energy Committee, constituency in the lignite state of North Rhine-Westphalia, thinks little of an earlier exit from coal. “If you want to get out earlier now, because of the security of supply, you have to accept that we will then have to replace electricity from coal,” Pieper points out, “with nuclear energy from France or coal electricity from Poland. Or that we are relying more on gas as a transition.”

Pieper sees the European Union in a very good position. In his view, the IPCC report only confirms the correctness of the EU concept for climate neutrality by 2050. “We are further ahead than other economic regions in the world.”

With a view to the upcoming negotiations on the “Fit for 55” program and possible procrastination tactics of individual member states, Pieper also becomes clear. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is so clear that “we can hardly compromise with the member states”. Piper doesn’t mention any country by name. But he wants to avoid endless summit nights and tug-of-war for tons of CO2. “Climate neutrality must apply to everyone. No region in Europe can cook any extra sausages there.”