Forests are burning, glaciers are melting and the window for stopping catastrophic climate change is closing.
Incoming European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has promised a climate law.
To tackle the climate crisis and implement the Paris climate agreement, Greenpeace and WWF call on the new EU climate law to do twelve things:
- Declare a climate emergency, and bring the full force of the EU’s powers to bear on tackling it.
- Commit the EU to reaching economy-wide climate neutrality (zero net emissions) by 2040, and to going into negative net emissions thereafter.
- Increase the EU’s 2030 emissions reduction target from at least 40% to at least 65%, with all sectors contributing, and require targets to be set for 2035 onwards in line with the science.
- Set a target for doubling carbon dioxide removal by EU sinks by 2030, through legislation and funding for nature-based solutions that support biodiversity targets.
- Commit to no backsliding and establish a five year review mechanism, in line with the Paris Agreement, to revise targets and update the EU’s long term strategy.
- Require all sectoral targets and legislation to be made consistent with climate objectives, starting with the EU’s damaging bioenergy policies.
- End the era of fossil fuels, by setting deadlines for their phase-out and banning any further exploration, subsidies and public finance and (as with tobacco) all advertising and sponsorship.
- Task the European Commission with cutting the EU’s international carbon and ecological footprint, particularly by protecting and restoring the world’s forests.
- Guarantee a fair transition for all and make climate justice a basic principle of EU policy.
- Require changes to EU legislation so that the EU budget and the operations of public and private financial institutions are rapidly aligned with the 1.5°C goal, and exclude green investment from the calculation of national deficits.
- Establish an independent scientific body, reporting to the European Parliament and Council, to advise on EU targets and scrutinise EU plans and policies.
- Involve EU citizens in shaping climate policies through meaningful participative democracy (this should start with the EU climate law itself).