The European Union is considering steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The EU only accounts for a fraction of total global emissions, but its actions could nevertheless have a big impact on future warming.

Last week, the European Council met to discuss a proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent, relative to 1990 levels, by 2030. A new study suggests such a strong signal from Europe could help avoid dangerous climate change – if other countries follow suit.

The European Union is on track to meet its existing target, a 20 per cent emissions cut by 2020. The final decision on the 40 per cent target will not be made until October. But for now the person in charge – the EU’s commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard – is maintaining a determinedly positive face.

“Today EU leaders showed that the way to greater energy independence goes through ambitious climate policies,” Hedegaard said on Friday. “Europe is now moving forward towards agreeing on the whole package by October.”


In addition to the 40 per cent emissions goal, the EU’s climate change plan also states that 27 per cent of the electricity powering Europe will come from renewables by 2030. This package of targets, proposed in January, is one of the most ambitious put forward by any government.

Strong signal

Environmental NGOs like Greenpeace point out that the EU targets are still shy of what is needed around the world to limit global warming to 2 °C – the politically determined “danger threshold”. However, a study published last week suggests that a strong signal from the EU could go a long way on the world stage if it convinces others to follow suit.

Elmar Kriegler of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues used computer models to look at how world temperatures could change if the EU adopts the 2030 targets.

Their model suggests that EU action on its own will not make much of a dent in global warming. But if other nations followed the EU’s example a little later – between 2030 and 2050 – global temperatures could stabilise at 2 °C of warming after 2100, having first overshot by between 0.2 °C and 0.4 °C (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, doi.org/r3g).

“It’s all about signalling,” says Kriegler. Action by the EU could convince others that stringent emissions cuts are financially viable, making them more likely to cut their own emissions. A lot rests on investors having confidence that the political system is moving towards a low-carbon world, he adds.

Big year

Certainly, the United Nations is lining everything up to send the right signals in 2014. Christiana Figueres, who heads up the UN climate talks, has been holding meetings with business leaders. At the same time, climate negotiators are meeting periodically throughout the year to discuss what needs to go into a global agreement on climate change.

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its latest mega-report in stages between now and October. The next chapter is due out on 31 March.

Things will reach fever pitch in the in the second half of this year. In September, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon will host a one-day climate summit in New York City, gathering heads of state and business. “He is calling a high-level meeting in which all heads of state of the world will be coming under one roof during one day to talk about one thing and that’s climate,” Figueres told a press briefing this month.

In October climate negotiators will meet again, the EU will make its decision on the 2030 targets, and the final chapter of the IPCC report will be released.

Then in December this year, the annual UN Climate Change Conference will take place in Lima, Peru. That is where Figueres is hoping governments will deliver a draft global agreement, which can be thrashed out over 12 months before being signed at 2015’s climate conference in Paris. Cross your fingers now.