This year's climate summit in Belem did not deliver necessary progress to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Similarly, the EU's contribution to the needed global emissions reductions by 2035 are not at the level required. The EU can make up for these failures by starting with the development of an EU roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, in line with its (failed) demand to get a global roadmap in the Belem conclusions.
The 2025 climate summit, COP30, which took place in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem, brought little progress in the fight against climate change and its harmful impacts. Expectations were high for the summit to accelerate the implementation of previous agreements such as in the Paris Agreement and the 2023 Global Stocktake (which aimed at tracking progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement's objectives). As the meeting took place in the Amazon, a mandate to develop a roadmap on ending forest degradation and deforestation was asked for, and supported by, close to 100 countries. This proved not enough and the roadmap does not appear in the final conclusions of the summit.
It is thus not surprising that a similar initiative to prepare a roadmap to implement the commitment to transition away from fossil fuels also failed to get the necessary support. Despite the fact that countries agreed two years ago to phase out fossil fuels and substantially increase renewable energy and energy efficiency, not enough progress has been made. This is, hence, why the development of a global roadmap could help countries with the necessary and agreed transition. While there was large support for this idea, a group of mainly oil-producing countries vetoed the proposal and it was taken out of the final conclusions of the summit. Even more, the words fossil fuels, the main driver behind climate change, are once again not featured in the outcome of COP30.
The EU, while at the beginning a bit shy to support the roadmap, became its biggest defender. Even more, the EU stated that it would not be able to adopt the final conclusions of COP30 if the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels was not included. This was a rather exceptional move from the EU, which in the past had always proven to be amongst the first to compromise. The EU thus became one of the most vocal proponents of the need to phase out fossil fuels, increasing the EU's image as a defender of climate ambition, an image that was seriously harmed by the EU's difficult process to get an agreement on its 2040 climate target and the subsequent adoption of a rather weak commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 66.25% by 2035 (compared to 1990 emissions).
Some cynical voices claimed that the EU's support for this fossil fuel roadmap was more of a negotiation tactic to divert the attention away of the EU's failure to increase its provision of climate finance in support of poor countries. The EU has a clear chance to show this cynical reading is wrong. As part of the policy framework that will be developed to implement the EU's new 2040 target (once adopted), the EU could develop its own roadmap on how to transition away from fossil fuel production and consumption in the Union. Indeed, nothing is stopping the EU from setting its own deadlines for when to phase out coal, oil and gas, or developing the necessary plans, policies and measures to achieve those deadlines.
Unfortunately, the EU has not yet shown much appetite for doing this. As part of the 2035 climate pledge that the EU submitted to the United Nations (UN) climate secretariat, the EU had to answer not only the question how it would contribute to limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, but also how the bloc would contribute to the transition away from fossil fuels, starting with the phase out of coal. The EU's answer to this question refers to its support for a fully or predominantly decarbonised power system in the 2030s but does not clearly indicate the EU's contribution to this global objective, despite the fact that the national pledges are specifically aimed at establishing what each country will contribute to the global commitments.
Obviously, the EU's contribution was far from convincing. While the EU and all other countries agreed to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, the world would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2035 as compared to 2019 emissions levels. The EU's commitment to reducing emissions by at least 66.25% compared to 1990 corresponds to an emission reduction of at least 54% compared to 2019. This is below the needed global average, despite the fact that everybody agrees that implementing the agreed upon UN equity principles, whereby emission reduction targets take into account a country's historical emissions responsibility and financial capacity to act, would mean the EU would need to go above the average and aim for reductions well beyond 60% by 2035 (compared to 2019). So even while the EU's target may seem better than those of many other G20 countries, it is fair to conclude that the EU's contribution does not reflect its fair share of the effort to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.
It is thus necessary to conclude that more needs to be done by the EU. This can start with ensuring that at the end of the final negotiations between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council, the 2040 target will reflect the highest level of ambition, and should be complemented by a similarly highly ambitious policy framework that aims at overachieving, and that sets clear targets for phasing out fossil fuels, increasing renewable energy production and reducing energy demand, as well as the right measures to tackle emissions in the industry, agriculture and forestry sectors.
The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue.
