EU’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Show Sharp 8% Decline in 2023, Matching Covid-Era Reductions
The European Union has recorded an achievement in its climate action with greenhouse gas emissions going down by 8% during 2023, according to the EEA report. This a slightly decreased level is relative to the death rate during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown levels. This reduction that was facilitated by transitioning to renewable energy sources, and closure of the coal-fired power plants put EU emissions at 37% below the 1990 levels, the key step towards achieving the EU’s 2030 climatic goals.
The energy sector became the biggest driver of the emissions cut where the expansion of the solar and wind energy systems pushed down the use of fossil fuel-based energy sources. Concerning industrial emissions, factories enhanced efficiency and altered the emission level by 6%. Likewise, the building sector achieved similar improvements in cutting its CO2 emissions and proved that the EU’s climate policies affected everyone.
Nevertheless, some sectors have shown a rather insignificant rise: in the farming sector, the emissions were cut by 2% and in the transport sector by only 1%. EEA’s executive director, Leena Ylä-Mononen also underlined the increasing speed of climate change and cited recent floods in Spain when more than 150 people died as evidence of the need for more stringent climate policy.
While current policies that are in place from member states require a cut of 43% by 2030, the target set by the EU is even higher at 55%. That is, measures could have been planned but never implemented: if so, the reduction could get to 49%, but this would still retain a six-percentage-point difference. Presently the average European generates 7.26 tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution per year, just over the global average of 6.59 tonnes.
