Forget Paris: Not A Single EU State Is Meeting Paris Climate Targets

Not a single EU state is meeting Paris climate targets, a new analysis finds.

It’s been close to three years since countries worldwide signed the Paris Agreement, which obligates nations pledge to commit themselves to intending (or something like that) to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to “safeguard the planet’s future”.

The language of the Agreement is in fact non-binding, and so one wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some signatories might not be living up to the agreement’s spirit.

“Relevant hoax”… all EU states “off-target”

Well, here’s the real shocker: According to a new analysis by NGO CAN Europe, all! EU countries are missing the Paris Agreement targets, as assessed by CAN Europe.

So now it’s crystal clear: Europe was never really serious about implementing the Paris Agreement from the very start. It was nothing more than a New Year’s resolution which no one ever intended to stick to.

Little wonder ex-NASA GISS director James Hansen just told the Guardian: “…the relevant hoax today is perpetrated by those leaders claiming to be addressing the problem.” Hansen is right.

CAN Europe: dismal results

The aim of the CAN Europe report was to examine “which EU Member States are willing to increase their climate action and tackle the gap between the goals of the Paris Agreement and current greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts in the EU.”

The final results? According to the CAN Europe:

The ranking shows that all EU countries are off target: they are failing to increase their climate action in line with the Paris Agreement goal. No single EU country is performing sufficiently in both ambition and progress in reducing carbon emissions.”

23 of 28 countries rated “poor” or “very poor”

The chart on page 5 of the CAN Europe report shows us that a whopping 23 of 28 European countries are in fact performing poorly or even very poorly.

Source: CAN Europe.

The nongovernmental organization assessed the European countries according to a variety of factors, especially pro capita emissions and progress on expanding renewable energies. For example leader Sweden met 77% of the CAN measures, while Poland met only 16%.