German environment minister warns against delaying EU's 2040 climate target decision
Der Spiegel
German environment minister Carsten Schneider, a Social Democrat (SPD), warned fellow cabinet members not to delay an agreement by member state governments on the EU’s new 2040 emission reduction target.
“Anyone who blocks the new European climate target for 2040 and delays the necessary decisions is acting against German interests and risks Germany having to go it alone at great expense,” Schneider told Der Spiegel magazine.
“I expect that we in government will now pull together and work jointly to ensure that a decision is reached at the next Environment Council meeting” on 18 September, Schneider said, adding that his SPD and chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives (CDU) committed to the target in their coalition agreement.
The European Commission has proposed cutting net emissions by 90 percent by 2040, and it is now up to member state governments and the European Parliament to decide their positions and negotiate the target. Against the backdrop of a government crisis in France, the country's government is pushing to delay an agreement on the target to a meeting of EU heads of state and government in October, according to media reports. That would make clinching a deal more difficult because unanimity would be required. Ministers, instead, could decide by qualified majority.
The 2040 target is seen as a waypoint between the EU’s 2030 target of a 55 percent emission cut and the 2050 climate neutrality goal, but concerns have grown that political pressure has led the European Commission to water down the goal by including flexibilities, such as international carbon credits. Environmental organisations from Germany and France have also called on their heads of state to support an ambitious EU climate target.
Schneider said the Commission proposal fitted “perfectly with existing German targets”, and would also be in the interest of industrial policy. “German businesses have a legitimate interest in ensuring that we do not go it alone in climate protection, but advance together in Europe,” he added.
