Researchers raise alarm as EU’s climate target relies heavily on carbon removal – ‘a pipe dream’
The European Union has announced an ambitious climate target for 2040 – seeking to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by 90% compared to 1990 levels. The target sounds admirable but has sparked controversy among the scientific community.
Researchers believe that the target risks depending too much on the largely unproven technology of carbon removal, rather than prioritising the cutting of fossil fuels. Moreover, the ongoing political situation across the bloc could pose certain challenges, too.
“We have got several countries with governments either just installed or in the making, like in the Netherlands, where the governments are likely to be led by parties who either don’t believe in climate change or don’t consider climate policy to be particularly the priority,” says Klein.
Is carbon removal approach just “a pipe dream”?
Richard Klein, a climate researcher at the Stockholm environment Institute, said carbon removal is a great approach if it works. “But it simply has not been shown to work at the scale that would be needed – it remains a pipe dream.”
The target is part of a ‘communication’ report unveiled on February 6. It is not yet legally binding but the communication is now set to form the basis of legislation designed to take the bloc beyond its existing targets for 2030 and onto its objective for 2050.
The commission’s current targets, already law, are to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% compared to 1990 levels by the end of the decade. The other goal commits the EU to achieving ‘carbon neutrality’ by the middle of the century.
In 2022, the EU reported a 32.5% reduction in emissions. The 2040 target, meanwhile, focuses on a ‘net cut’. It means the objective can be met by actual cuts to emissions alongside technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) to lock the emissions underground.
EU member states cannot just rely on carbon removal
Klein said it’d be very dangerous to rely strongly on carbon removal, because it could give the signal that “you can basically continue to invest in fossil fuels, and that will go very much against the idea of what was agreed in Dubai at COP28.”
Expo City Dubai in the UAE hosted the annual climate conference last year, marking several key achievements from the first day itself. Participants at the event also acknowledged the need to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ in order to keep the planet healthy.
Nonetheless, the EU communication report explicitly separates out emissions reductions from carbon removal – implying member states cannot just rely on the evolving technologies, they must also reduce emissions in parallel.
Read More: Do wind turbines contribute to climate change as they generate electricity?
