The EU wants to buy CO2 emission rights from poor countries to meet its climate goals.

BrusselsThe European Commission has ratified this Wednesday its objective of reduce 90% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, a milestone it has claimed as the most ambitious. However, to achieve it, the Community executive itself has announced that will introduce further flexibilities in compliance with regulations and, among other measures, will allow the reduction in emissions that they manage to promote in countries outside the European Union to be counted towards achieving the climate objectives of the member states.

Brussels' intention with the presentation of this climate objective is to protect the path of reducing polluting emissions to achieve climate neutrality in 2050, which is the final milestone for the EU. In this way, it aims to ensure that the environmental backlash that is crossing all of Europe and the opposition of a majority of state governments ends diluting the green agenda already approved by the European club.

Now, the regulations presented by the Vice President of the European Commission and head of Net Transition, Teresa Ribera, must be negotiated and approved by the Member States to be approved. For this reason, the proposal waters down some of the current requirements for meeting the targets and, in the same statement issued by the Community executive, opens the door to several "flexibilities."

In this sense, the main novelty is that Member States will be able to partially externalize emissions reductions. Brussels intends to introduce what are known as international carbon credits, which will allow Member States to account for emissions reductions achieved by third countries—usually poorer economies—as their own, either by paying them a certain price per ton of CO₂.that reduce or make green investments.

This is a trading system for emissions rights that is already included in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. However, Brussels is currently limiting its application: it will be open to use starting in 2036, and at most only emissions equivalent to 3% of those recorded by the EU in 1990 can be purchased. Furthermore, member states must ensure that third countries actually implement measures and projects that achieve reliable monitoring and verification of pollution.

Another of the flexibilities proposed by Brussels is that climate targets will no longer be divided by economic sectors and that, from now on, the sector that pollutes the most in one industrial field can be compensated by another that has significantly exceeded climate milestones. In any case, the European Commission has avoided clarifying which sectors plan to reduce emissions more than expected, and when asked about this issue, European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has simply emphasized the benefits of renewable energy.

Pressure against Ribera

The presentation of this measure was led and promoted by Ribera, who is one of the few socialist and environmentalist voices remaining in the European Commission and in the EU as a whole. Despite the flexibilities she has agreed to include, member states have publicly expressed their dislike for Brussels' new climate target, as they believe it increases the pressure on them to continue reducing emissions.

In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron himself advocated at last week's European Council for not presenting this 2040 climate target and instead focusing on those already agreed upon. It should be noted that in recent years the EU has watered down many of the environmental measures that Ursula von der Leyen herself had promoted at the beginning of the last legislature, and has already allowed exceptions for the automotive industry and, among others, the agri-food sector, which are some of the sectors that They have been more critical of the European green agenda.