By Meabh McMahon & Jeremy Fleming-Jones
Published on •Updated
It would be a mistake for the European Commission to follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s advice and slam the brakes on its proposals for 2040 climate targets, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera told Euronews’ Europe Today show on Friday morning.
Ribera, responsible for the EU’s green transition portfolio, is slated to present the 2040 targets after next Wednesday’s meeting of the college of commissioners.
The French president raised his opposition to the EU executive’s tabling of the proposal next week in an unusual intervention at the leaders’ level during the EU Council summit in Brussels on Thursday.
After the summit he told reporters that the EU should take more time to come to an agreement on the new targets because “we want to make this climate ambition compatible with European competitiveness”.
“I believe in the possibility of a Europe that reconciles an ambitious climate agenda with respect for the commitments of the Paris Agreement and that preserves its competitiveness. All that requires is technological neutrality, the ability to invest and consistency in trade policy,” Macron said.
Targets are essential to economic and social welfare, says Ribera
“The 2040 targets can’t be a technical debate that takes just a few weeks. It has to be a democratic debate at 27 (member states). And I say this because I love Europe. And I say it because, in two years’ time, I’ll no longer be in charge of my country. But I would be unwise to leave my successor a situation that had been debated outside the framework of the 27,” he added.
“I think it could be a mistake,” Ribera told Europe Today, asked by presenter Meabh McMahon whether she was prepared to accede to Macron and delay the proposal.
“This year is the 10th anniversary of the Paris agreement, and we want to identify how we can keep on going in something we that we think is quite essential for the economic and social welfare of Europeans and worldwide,” Ribera said.
“We have already identified that we want to be a fully carbonised economy by 2050, we have targets for 2030, we need some clear orientation around 2040, and the reduction of 90% is a clear goal,” the Spanish commissioner said.
“Then how we can combine the different pieces, the eventual flexibilities is the thing to be discussed, but we are working hard and we will table our proposal in the coming days.”
The EU is committed to net-zero by 2050, after bringing its carbon emissions to 55% below 1990 levels by the end of this decade. The missing element is the 2040 target, which the EU executive was originally supposed to table last year, but which has been subject to delay.
