Members of the European Parliament have voted in favour of increasing the European Union’s Paris Agreement emissions pledge by 2020, and also urged the European Commission to make sure its long-term climate strategy models net-zero emissions for 2050 “at the latest”.

The Parliament’s environment committee decided in its COP24 resolution that the EU should reconsider its greenhouse gas emissions reduction pledge, currently fixed at 40 per cent, and increase it up to “at least 55 per cent”.

Earlier this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its landmark report on the effects of global warming and warned that temperatures are currently on track to rise by three degrees Celsius by century’s end.

EU news website EURACTIV reports stark confirmation that global climate action efforts are nearly completely insufficient to meet even the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement’s two degree Celsius goal proved incentive enough as a broad coalition of MEPs ended up backing the proposed increase, tabled by the ALDE group.

Greens Party MEP Bas Eickhout, one of the co-authors of the resolution, told EURACTIV that the IPCC report was “good timing” and provided “substantive backing of the world’s science” for what his political group have been championing for some time.

The text, which will be scrutinised by a full sitting of the Parliament at the end of the month, urges the EU to use the UN’s Talanoa Dialogue to revisit its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) by 2020, as “the current NDC is not in line with the goals set out in the Paris Agreement”.

EU Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete has made no secret of the fact that recently revised clean energy rules mean the bloc will “de facto” emit 45 per cent less and was reportedly keen to push for a formal increase at the Council’s Luxembourg meeting.

The European Commission’s ongoing effort to draft a long-term climate strategy was also scrutinised by both the Parliament resolution and the Council conclusions.

MEPs agreed that the strategy should include an option for Europe to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2050, clarifying that the transition should not happen after that specific date.

EURACTIV reported at the beginning of the week that although the political arm of the Commission, including Mr Cañete and even President Jean-Claude Juncker, are pro-net-zero emissions, some in the climate directorate believe business-as-usual is Paris Agreement-compliant.

A draft of the long-term strategy revealed that the Commission is split between applying the precautionary principle and favouring a less ambitious transition.

Rockwool International’s Brook Riley told EURACTIV that “from a business and investment point of view, there is a big risk in being told a pathway is adequate only to find out later that it isn’t”.

Work is ongoing and a final version is expected to be revealed the week before COP24 on November 28.