The\u00a0European Union\u00a0unveiled its long-term vision on combating climate change in a push for more ambitious action on the environment just days after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected his government\u2019s warning on the economic costs of global warming.<\/p>\n
The 28-nation bloc, responsible for 10 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, set a 2050 perspective to help give direction to member states, companies and citizens to anticipate costs in fighting temperature increases. The EU\u2019s updated strategy comes\u00a0a week before\u00a0representatives from almost 200 countries are due to meet in Poland for an annual conference on addressing climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this plan, Europe will be the world\u2019s first major economy to go for net-zero emissions by 2050,\u201d EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said. \u201cIt is necessary to meet the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. It is possible with current technologies and those close to deployment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While the new European strategy doesn\u2019t propose changing the bloc\u2019s 2030 goal, it sets seven building blocks for the following decades that could be turned into binding targets later on. These range from energy-efficiency measures, including developing zero-emission buildings and smart infrastructures and greater use of renewable-energy sources.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing carbon-neutral will spur investments in European clean-energy solutions of up to almost 300 billion euros ($339 billion) a year,\u201d Arias Canete said. \u201cAnd overall, it will help grow our economy up to 2 percent of GDP by 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n
The steps are aimed at showing how determined the EU is to honor the Paris accord\u2019s targets even in the face of Trump\u2019s decision to take the U.S. out of the 2015 agreement signed by almost all other countries in the world.<\/p>\n
The EU currently has a binding target of cutting emissions by at least 40 percent by the end of the next decade. That\u2019s not enough to meet the Paris objective of keeping global temperature growth well below 2 degrees Celsius, a move scientists say is needed to prevent catastrophic effects of global warming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many challenges on the road. But with climate change, business as usual is not an option and we cannot afford the price of inaction,\u201d Arias Canete said. \u201cGoing climate-neutral is necessary, possible and in Europe\u2019s interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the EU, which wants to lead by example, the long-term strategy is also a political tool to demand more at the next\u00a0United Nations\u00a0talks that start next week in Katowice, Poland. Envoys at the meeting will aim to draw up a rule-book to implement the Paris deal and its mechanisms to step up carbon reductions worldwide.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Arias Canete will discuss the plan with the\u00a0European Parliament\u00a0in Brussels. The\u00a0European Commission, the EU executive, says all relevant national actors should have policy debates in order to prepare heads of state and government for a meeting on the Future of Europe on May 9, 2019, in Sibiu, Romania.<\/p>\n
EU member states are to submit by the end of 2018 their own draft national climate and energy plans, which should take into account the bloc\u2019s latest strategy. The EU calls for expanding cooperation with global partners over the years so that all nations, rich and poor alike, submit their own national long-term view. That should also include business associations, regions and cities that are already ironing out their own long-term visions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we do not lead, nobody else will,\u201d Arias Canete said. \u201cAnd if nobody else acts, unrestrained climate change will severely impact Europe, as well as everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The\u00a0European Union\u00a0unveiled its long-term vision on combating climate change in a push for more ambitious action on the environment just days after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected his government\u2019s warning on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,48,57,90,96,107,113,137,139,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,267,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-2584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-embargo","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}