EU sets out COP31 battle lines: pledges are not enough

The European Union is increasingly worried about whether nations will actually implement existing climate targets as it prepares for the United Nations’ climate summit, COP31, according to a Council document seen by Euronews.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

“(The Council highlights with concern) that current ambition and implementation remain insufficient to limit warming to 1.5°C,” read the draft Council conclusions dated 14 September, referring to the Paris Agreement.

Similar concerns were recently shared by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which warned the world is set to cross the 1.5°C global warming threshold, but can still limit, adapt to and return from higher temperatures.

Early in the summer, Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said that the latest COPs have fallen short of the urgent progress needed to tackle the climate crisis, calling their outcomes “underwhelming” compared to scientific demands.

In Antalya, where COP31 will take place in November, Brussels wants to defend the Paris Agreement and keep 1.5°C at the centre of international diplomacy, but it is also shifting the emphasis towards delivery, investment and implementation, according to the draft.

Rather than agreeing on new targets, the EU wants COP31 to deliver concrete outcomes: faster clean-energy deployment, a transition away from fossil fuels, greater electrification, tripling renewable energy, doubling energy-efficiency improvements and cutting methane and other non-CO2 emissions by 2030.

EU ambassadors want COP31 to produce “tangible progress” in closing the global ambition and implementation gaps and to set the direction for the next Paris Agreement cycle as the bloc of 27 nations concedes that pledges alone are no longer enough without active action.

The draft also calls on major polluters to raise their ambitions and minimise both the scale and duration of the overshoot, which UNEP and many other climate scientists have warned must be tackled with urgency.

“(The Council) urges all parties, particularly major emitters, to act with the highest possible ambition and make all efforts to return to a 1.5°C compatible trajectory and to minimise the magnitude and duration of the overshoot,” reads the draft document.

Ironically, COP31 host Turkey keeps prioritising fossil fuels, despite its vast potential to replace them with clean power and recent success in increasing renewable energy capacity, according to a study of the country’s power sector released on Wednesday by the Climate Action Tracker.

Energy transition and climate adaptation

Having becoming hostage to global price volatility due to disruption in the Middle East, the EU now frames the transition away from fossil fuels not as a purely environmental climate policy but as a matter of energy security and affordability.

It argues that renewables, low-carbon energy, energy efficiency and electrification can simultaneously strengthen energy security, reduce strategic dependencies and improve resilience.

On international climate, the Council is following the same energy policy touted by the European Commission, even if some divergences persist at home with consequential legislative files, such as the future of the bloc’s carbon market or the ban on new cars and vans powered by diesel or petrol.

The EU also suggests that climate resilience is a paramount prerequisite for safe and prosperous economies and stresses that mitigation and adaptation must go together – a reality that Europeans are increasingly facing at home after a summer marked by intense heatwaves, wildfires and drought.

To address the issue, the EU wants all the nations at COP31 to incorporate their National Adaptation Plans into national investment plans and development strategies, reflecting a broader recognition that climate policy is no longer simply about preventing future warming but dealing with damage already occurring.

However, climate finance is likely to be one of the harder political negotiations.

Elephant in the room

In an echo of COP30 in Brazil, the EU will call for increased finance for developing countries covering mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. It will also reaffirm its efforts to triple adaptation finance. However, it simultaneously stresses that public money alone cannot meet the scale of investment required.

The draft also highlights carbon pricing as an efficient way of cutting emissions and redirecting financial flows towards climate action.

After the absence of the biggest polluters at last year’s COP30, the EU will reaffirm its commitment to multilateralism and call for reforms to make the system more effective and inclusive – a key point expected to become very contentious.

Given the current geopolitical scene, the EU’s pursuit of multilateralism suggests COP31 will be about defending the international climate architecture as well as negotiating individual emissions measures.

Reacting to the draft document, Sven Harmeling, head of climate at the NGO Climate Action Network Europe, welcomed the EU’s position in backing the 1.5°C, tripling renewables, just transition and climate adaptation, but criticised the persistent lack of ambition on climate financing.

“The draft still avoids the central question: what will the EU actually put on the table?” Harmeling said.

“Reaffirming the goal of tripling adaptation finance is welcome, but without clarity on Europe’s own contribution, the mandate risks asking more of others than it commits to itself.”