EU countries early yesterday clinched deals on proposed laws to combat climate change, backing a 2035 phaseout of new fossil fuel vehicle sales and a multibillion-dollar fund to shield poorer citizens from carbon emission costs.
After more than 16 hours of negotiations, environment ministers from the EU’s 27 member states agreed their joint positions on five laws, part of a broader package of measures to slash planet-warming emissions this decade.
“The climate crisis and its consequences are clear, and so policy is unavoidable,” EU climate policy head Frans Timmermans said, adding that he thought the invasion of Ukraine by top gas supplier Russia was spurring countries to quit fossil fuels faster.
Ministers supported core parts of the package that the European Commission first proposed last summer, including a law requiring new vehicles sold in the EU to emit zero carbon dioxide from 2035. That would make it impossible to sell internal-combustion engine vehicles.
The deal makes it likely that the proposal would become EU law. The ministers’ agreements would form their position in upcoming negotiations with the EU Parliament on the final laws. Parliament has already backed the 2035 car target.
Italy, Slovakia and other states had wanted the phaseout delayed to 2040. Countries eventually backed a compromise proposed by Germany, the EU’s biggest auto market, which kept the 2035 target and asked Brussels to assess in 2026 whether hybrid vehicles or carbon dioxide-neutral fuels could comply with the goal.
Timmermans said that the commission would keep an “open mind,” but that today, hybrids did not deliver sufficient emissions cuts and alternative fuels were prohibitively expensive.
The climate proposals aim to ensure the 27-country EU — the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter — reaches its 2030 target of reducing net emissions by 55 percent from 1990 levels.
Doing so would require governments and industries to invest heavily in cleaner manufacturing, renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Ministers backed a new EU carbon market to impose emission costs on polluting fuels used in transport and buildings, although they said it should launch in 2027, a year later than initially planned.
After fraught negotiations, they agreed to form a 59 billion euros (US$62 billion) EU fund to shield low-income citizens from the policy’s costs from 2027 to 2032.
Lithuania was the only country to oppose the final agreements, having unsuccessfully sought a bigger fund alongside Poland, Latvia and others concerned the new carbon market could increase citizens’ energy bills.
Ministers also rallied behind reforms to the EU’s current carbon market, which forces industry and power plants to pay when they pollute.
Countries accepted core elements of the commission’s proposal to reinforce the market to cut emissions 61 percent by 2030, and extend it to cover shipping. They agreed on rules to make it easier for the EU to intervene in response to carbon price spikes.
Ministers backed two other laws to strengthen the national emissions-cutting targets Brussels sets countries for some sectors, and increase natural carbon sinks like forests.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS