The Climate Action Network Europe (CAN) and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), two climate NGOs, announced on Tuesday that they were suing the European Commission over concerns about failing to meet climate targets by 2030.
In their statement, CAN and GLAN said they had gone to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) because they believed the Community executive had “set unlawful annual emission limits until 2030 for each Union country in the sectors of construction, agriculture, waste, small industry and transport, which account for around 57% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-27.”
“We believe that the EU’s 2030 targets were not based on the best available climate science,” and that “the 2030 target and its accompanying impact assessment contain a number of legal shortcomings that suggest that the annual emissions allocations are in conflict with environmental law,” the climate associations added in a press release.
For these reasons, CAN and GLAN understand that “the EU’s global climate ambitions continue to deviate alarmingly from the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit”, and so the current legal process aims to be “a call for an EU decision to encourage producers to accelerate their climate action and go beyond the inadequate level of ambition of the Fit for 55 legislative package, thereby delivering sharp emissions reductions in the short term and achieving at least a 65% reduction in gross emissions by 2030.”
NGOs are therefore hoping for a ruling that obliges the Commission to review and increase national commitment limits for the reduction of annual greenhouse gas emissions, hoping that in terms of timing, the first hearing will take place in the General Court (first instance of the CJEU) in the second half of 2025 and a decision in early 2026.
“We must use all available channels to put pressure on the European Commission to align the EU’s climate ambitions with its fair share of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. The EU must accelerate its emissions reductions and achieve at least a 65% reduction by 2030 if it is to become a credible player,” stresses CAN Europe’s head of climate action Sven Harmeling, quoted in the statement.
Since NGOs cannot have direct access to the CJEU, the process that has now ended began a year ago, when the two organisations took their first administrative action against the European institution before the court, to which they said Brussels “responded unsatisfactorily”, which then led to the current challenge.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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