Germany cautious on agreeing tougher 2030 EU CO2 cuts by end-2020

Germany is cautious about its prospects for agreeing a 2030 EU CO2 cut target of more than 40% below 1990 levels during its EU Council presidency, which runs from July 1 to December 31, a German diplomat said Thursday.

The European Commission plans to propose in September raising this target to 50%-55%, which would mean further reforms to the EU Emissions Trading System, a boost to EU carbon prices, and stronger investment signals for low-carbon energies such as renewables and hydrogen.

Germany will lead the 27 EU national governments' policy debates during its presidency, but the coronavirus pandemic's impact means that it will even harder than usual to reach agreements, Luis Manuel Schultz, energy attache at Germany's embassy to the EU, told a Eurogas webinar.

"On the 2030 target, we will have to see how far we can get," he said.

The EC is using EU governments' national energy and climate plans setting out their planned contributions to the EU's 2030 renewables and energy efficiency targets to help assess how high to go on the CO2 target.

But Germany, the EU's biggest economy, has still not delivered its final plan. The deadline was the end of last year.

"The national plans are the precondition to step up ambition for our goals," EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said on May 5.

The EC had planned to publish an assessment of all the plans before the summer, which would have given a first indication of how close the national commitments were to achieving the EU goals.

But Simson said she would now wait until all the plans were in.

Schultz said Germany was still finalizing its plan and would deliver it "soon."

The EU set itself the binding 40% CO2 cut by 2030 target in 2018, along with a binding 2030 target to source 32% of its gross final energy demand from renewables, and a non-binding 2030 target to improve its energy efficiency by 32.5%.

Call for 65% CO2 cut

The EC will propose its tougher 2030 CO2 cut as an amendment to its draft EU climate law unveiled in March that aims to make the EU's target to be climate-neutral by 2050 binding.

The European Parliament's lead negotiator on the climate law has already called for the 2030 CO2 target to be 65% below 1990 levels, in her draft report published this month.

Swedish center-left member Jytte Guteland argued that 65% is in line with the science of what the EU needs to do to meet its commitments under the Paris climate accord to limit global warming.

She also called for the EC to consider proposing an 80%-85% CO2 cut target for 2040.

Both the parliament and the EU Council have to agree a common text for the EU climate law before it can become binding.

The parliament has history of pushing for tougher CO2 cut targets than the council.