Europe Unlikely to Meet Climate Goal, Study Finds

BERLIN — The European Union will fail to meet
an ambitious goal of significantly reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 unless it takes
more aggressive measures to limit the use of
fossil fuels and adopts new environmental
policies, according to a report scheduled for
release on Tuesday.

Although European countries are on track to
meet, and even surpass, the goal of reducing
1990-level greenhouse gas emissions by 20
percent by 2020, existing policies are not robust
enough to ensure that the 2050 targets are met,
the report said. Those targets, scientists have
said, are critical to forestalling the most
catastrophic effects of climate change , which are
linked to carbon emissions caused by human
activity.

“The level of ambition of environmental policies
currently in place to reduce environmental
pressures may not enable Europe to achieve long-
term environmental goals, such as the 2050 target
of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95
percent,” the report said.

The report also noted that transportation
continues to account for a quarter of all carbon
emissions within the European Union, and
reducing those by 60 percent by 2050 will require
“significant additional measures.”

The report, which will formally be released on
Tuesday, was compiled by the European
Environment Agency, based in Copenhagen, and
is produced every five years to assess how the
Union is progressing toward its environmental
goals and to inform European policy. It will be
presented to the European Commission and
debated in the European Parliament later this
month.

The findings are significant because Europeans
have taken a lead role in seeking to avert the
worst effects of climate change , in some cases
putting aside their own economic prospects and
political pressures to enact policies that could also
serve as models for other countries and regions.

The European Union’s failure to achieve its goals
could discourage efforts by more reluctant
nations, like China and India, and could loom
large later this year as nations gather in Paris to
discuss a global climate treaty.

Hans Bruyninckx, the executive director of the
European Environment Agency, characterized
the report as an alarming call that provides the
28 European Union member states with a fresh
opportunity to set a global example.

“Although we have colored the outlook red, it
doesn’t have to be red,” Mr. Bruyninckx said. He
named increased energy efficiency, ecological
innovation and improvements to transportation
systems as potential areas in which Europeans
could adjust their policies to meet their long-term
goals.

“Although we have all of these very different
countries with very different energy profiles, in
the long run, the commitment to these targets is
there, the level of ambition to reach the 80
percent is high on the political agenda,” Mr.
Bruyninckx said.

Setting global emissions targets, however, has
proved elusive for years, and the latest
assessment of Europe’s progress illustrates that
once targets are reached, significant difficulties
remain in holding countries to their agreed-to
goals.

Even a country like Germany, where support for
the environment borders on a religion, has faced
unforeseen challenges as it aims to revamp its
energy sector from reliance on traditional
sources of energy, such as nuclear and fossil
fuels, to renewable sources, including wind, solar
and biofuels.

The race to shutter the country’s nuclear reactors
by 2022, for example, has resulted in many
power providers using brown coal, or lignite, the
cheapest and dirtiest of all fossil fuels to keep the
power flowing to customers. This, in turn, has led
to an increase in carbon emissions.

According to the report, Germany, whose
economy is the best in Europe, was the only
country with a significant rise in both its
emissions reductions and energy consumption
last year. Along with Belgium, it is one of only
two countries not on track to meet its 2020
targets in either category. According to the
German Association of Energy and Water
Industries, the country increased its carbon
omissions by 20 million tons from 2012 to 2013,
instead of reducing them.

In order to meet its goals, Germany must reduce
emissions annually by 3.5 percent over the next
six years, a feat that will result in substantial
increases in energy costs, and generate political
pressure to block measures that could hurt the
economy.

Harro van Asselt, a researcher at the Stockholm
Environment Institute’s Oxford Centre, said
Germany saw a drop in emissions after many
polluting industrial sites in the former East
Germany were shuttered between the late 1990s
and early 2000s. The closings occurred just as
Europe began tackling climate change, which
assisted the European Union in meeting its 2020
targets, he said.

“The question is not why they might stumble
now; the main question is why did they reach
their targets before,” Mr. van Asselt said.
Now the hard part begins, he said, as the
European Union faces the need to undertake
more difficult and costly measures in areas like
transportation and agriculture to ensure that
emissions targets remain on track.

“As long as the European Commission doesn’t
undertake more measures in these sectors, they
are going to have difficulties in even reaching
their goals for 2030,” Mr. van Asselt said.
Globally, the environmental news is not all bleak.
The United States failed to adopt the Kyoto
Protocol in 1997, in part because Congress feared
it would hurt the country economically. But last
year President Obama and President Xi Jinping
of China reached an agreement that set new goals
for those countries to curb their carbon
emissions within the next 15 years. The deal was
seen as a breakthrough, helping to resolve some
of the differences between two of the world’s
biggest polluters, whose dispute was partly the
reason a climate agreement was not reached in
Copenhagen in 2009.

European leaders are counting on recent
international efforts to help reach a global
agreement in Paris. The most recent report
issued by the United Nations last year warned
that failure to reduce emissions could alter the
climate so drastically that it could endanger life
as we know it. The Europeans hope this added
pressure, coupled with the moral example they
tried to set decades ago, will contribute to a
lasting global agreement on emissions
reductions.

“I think the role of Europe is essential and we
have demonstrated that we can make solid
multinational agreements that can work,” Mr.
Bruyninckx said.