EU leaders have been “strongly advised” to expand budget ambitions to tackle climate change under the Green Deal.
To coincide with a European Council meeting that has been arranged to discuss the size and structure of the EU budget for the period 2021-2027, Climate Action Network (CAN) said current proposals for the budget for the member states over the next decade “fall short” of ambitious climate action as proposed in the European Green Deal.
The current proposal to increase the share of the future EU budget for climate action from 20% to 25% represents a “marginal increase” that still falls short of the climate neutrality objective EU leaders adopted in December 2019, the European NGO coalition on energy and climate has stated.
Instead, CAN has called for a spending target of at least 40% to support the decarbonisation of all sectors of the economy.
The aim of the Green Deal is to make the European economy climate neutral. The Sustainable Europe Investment Plan, including the Just Transition Mechanism, will provide targeted finance to Europe’s most vulnerable regions as they transition to clean energy.
CAN stated: “However, the entire EU budget can potentially boost the energy transition, if climate neutrality is at the heart of each spending plan and if more money is directed at decarbonisation of the energy, transport, housing, and farming sectors.
“At the same time fossil fuel spending would be excluded from all EU funding.”
The Just Transition Mechanism is a “welcome completion” of existing EU funding sources, but according to the network, the real “firepower” can be found in EU regional funding, known as Cohesion Policy, which could be directed at helping Europe’s fossil fuel-dependent regions switch to a zero-carbon economy.
The European Parliament, Commission, and Council are still negotiating where the money of EU funds, Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion Policy, in particular, will go, according to CAN.
“The exclusion of fossil fuels will be a key step for the EU to show consistency between its Green Deal and the budgetary decisions,” it stated.
CAN finance and subsidies policy coordinator Markus Trilling said: “The money is there, but there is not yet the political will to spend it wisely. The EU budget must catalyse changes that will benefit citizens and the environment.
“The current budget proposals are not in line with the European Green Deal promises, as if EU leaders turned a blind eye on the implications for the budget of the climate neutrality goal that they committed to last December. They must urgently connect the dots between climate ambition and how the EU money can better serve that ambition.”
CEE Bankwatch Network EU policy officer Raphael Hanoteaux added: “EU leaders must focus on the quality – not the quantity – of budget spending.
“Debates over the size of the pot miss the mark, because effective spending means no money wasted on obsolete fossil fuels while giving priority to investments for action to curtail climate change.”