Parliament discusses EU’s Cop 29 negotiating position

The European Parliament today continued discussions on a draft resolution which will shape the EU's negotiating stance at the UN Cop 29 climate summit in November. But groups within the EU disagree on elements of the draft, including the bloc's own emissions reduction targets.

The European Commission has a preferred target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 90pc by 2040, from a 1990 baseline, but this remains a proposal. The European scientific advisory board recommended a 90-95pc cut in GHGs over the same timeframe.

"We will block any mention of 95pc [emissions cuts]… For 90pc, we need more conditions. We must stop setting targets without knowing how to achieve them," German EPP member Peter Liese told Argus, after a meeting of parliament's environment committee. The centre-right EPP is the largest party in th EU parliament.

Liese is pushing for the European Commission to focus more on "enabling" infrastructure for carbon capture and storage (CCS), accelerating the permitting process for renewables, and decarbonising industry. And while Liese personally supports a 90pc GHG reduction target, he noted that his EPP group is "not yet there".

Spanish centre-left S&D member Javi Lopez wants the EU to maintain ambitious climate goals for the sake of the entire planet, advocating for more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Renew Europe's Swedish liberal Emma Wiesner also wants more ambition, calling the current draft resolution "very weak". Wiesner criticised the omission of strong wording on carbon pricing in the resolution. Parliament should focus on establishing a global price on CO2 and prevent Cop 29 discussions from using Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to obscure emissions reductions through removals, Wiesner said. Article 6 allows countries to transfer carbon credits earned from cutting GHG emissions to help other countries meet their climate targets.

And groups are not yet aligned on climate finance — the topic set to take centre stage at Cop 29. The EU cannot bear the entire cost of climate action, Portuguese EPP member Lidia Pereira said. Countries like China, Singapore and Saudi Arabia should also contribute more to climate financing, she said. Czech conservative ECR member Alexandr Vondra echoed this sentiment. "It's impossible for us to pay the bills for the whole world," he said.

Austrian Green member Lena Schilling wants any Baku agreement to provide a new post-2025 climate finance goal — the next stage of the current $100bn/yr target for international climate finance. Schilling further called for the EU to advocate for a phase-out of coal by 2030, gas by 2035, and oil by 2040 "at the latest".

By Dafydd ab Iago