According to a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) earlier this week (2 March), the European Union will not manage to meet its long-term climate change objectives unless major changes are made. The block will likely fail to meet the goals despite its drastic implementation of changes to energy and transportation infrastructure to help achieve the EU’s objective of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 when compared to 1990 levels. The report claims that it is difficult to provide a momentum even when EU nationals are strongly committed to make meaningful shifts.
EEA precisely stated that “the level of ambition of existing environmental policy may be inadequate to achieve Europe’s long-term environmental goals”. The objectives are seen as necessary to prevent the average global temperature from increasing by more than 2 degrees Celsius as compared with pre-industrial times. The agency highlights that whereas the EU is on its way to meet its promise to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020, the 2050 goal so far seems unattainable despite major efforts that Brussels has made in recent years.
EEA says that today’s emissions are almost 20 percent lower than 1990s levels despite the fact that the European economy has grown by 45 percent. The report explains that the division between economic growth and environmental costs is important because outside Europe, the two typically are strongly linked. One of the biggest challenges ahead of “green” economies is to find more environment-friendly sources of fuel for transportation, which is currently believed to be among major pollutants. The EU Commission estimates that in order to meet the 2050 target, such emissions must be reduced by 60 percent from today’s levels. Transportation remains to be the only sector where emissions have gone up since the 1990s.