Net zero 2050 at risk? European Union may fail to meet climate neutrality target
The European Union may not manage to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, warns WWF. According to experts, the current pace of action is insufficient, and the lack of advanced technologies and the complicated international situation are resulting in serious difficulties in achieving this ambitious goal. In Poland, the road to decarbonisation may be even more bumpy, and the cost of the transition could range from 4.5 to 5% GDP.
Climate neutrality 2050 unrealistic. WWF leaves no illusions
- The current rate of change is not enough for the European Union to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, says Miroslaw Proppe, President of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Poland. - In my opinion today we have technologies that are sufficient to achieve only 70 per cent of this target.
According to the WWF president, the EU's ambitious target is also not helped by the Donald Trump administration's anti-climate policies. Watching events from overseas, including the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, many people may turn their backs on environmental action.
- In the absence of decarbonisation the world is on track to increase global warming by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. [...] Investing just 2 per cent of global GDP would limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius and allow us to adapt to most of its consequences," concluded Mikołaj Troczyński of the WWF Poland Foundation. The expert referred to data from a March report by the Boston Consulting Group.
Achieving climate neutrality in 2050 would require an increase in clean technology investment to €28 trillion, or 4% of EU GDP. Importantly, the constraint is not just financial shortfalls, but also the state of technological development. As Proppe points out, the technologies needed to close the 30 per cent gap are currently in the testing phase and will not be deployable until a very distant future.
5% GDP over the next 25 years - that's the cost of decarbonisation in Poland
According to WWF expert estimates, the Polish road to decarbonisation will be even more costly than the transformation of the entire EU. According to various sources, achieving climate neutrality by 2050 would require an increase in decarbonisation expenditures to 4.5-5% GDP. Nikolai Trochinskiy points out, however, that freeing ourselves from coal could increase Poland's GDP by a minimum of 4%. The investment therefore seems justified, especially as staying with coal could cost more than 2 trillion zloty.
What is net zero, or climate neutrality?
Climate neutrality, also known as carbon neutrality or net zero, means maintaining the balance between atmospheric emissions and absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. The purpose of such emissions balancing is to reduction of environmental pollution by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In pursuit of climate neutrality 2 mechanisms are most commonly used: offsetting of emissions (so-called carbon offset) and use of carbon dioxide canisters. The key natural sinks of CO2 from the atmosphere are forests, oceans and soil. It is estimated that they are capable of absorbing between 9.5 and 11 gigatonnes of CO2 per year. As the 2021 figures show, this is only a drop in the ocean of needs - annual global emissions for 2021 were as high as 37.8 gigatonnes of CO2.
Net zero 2050 as an objective of EU climate policy
The European Union wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The first stop on the way to this goal is to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030. (the so-called Fit for 55). It presupposes reaching out to the so-called low hanging fruits - prioritising rapid and predictable emission reductions while enhancing the role of natural sinks. The next step is to achieve a 90 per cent reduction in emissions by 2040. In both cases, the reference point for calculations is the 1990 emissions level.
The EU's aim is to improve the use of forests as natural sinks. However, this alone is not enough - a number of measures are also needed to help offset emissions.
Zero-carbon by 2050 is a goal that stems from EU legislation - Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council obliges all EU institutions and Member States to take the necessary measures to balance emissions and achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Net zero is also a key tenet of the European Green Deal and is in line with international treaties, notably the Paris Agreement.
What about after 2050? As the regulation reads, after climate neutrality is achieved, the EU's target will be negative emissions. As with net zero 2050, this goal is to be achieved mainly by strengthening the role of natural sinks while reducing existing emissions.
Ecosystem restoration would help to maintain, manage and enhance natural sinks, as well as promote biodiversity and combat climate change at the same time. Furthermore, through their triple role of absorbing, storing and replacing, forests contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, while ensuring that forests continue to grow and provide many other services.
Sources:
- The European Union will not achieve carbon neutrality by 2050., https://portalkomunalny.pl/unia-europejska-nie-osiagnie-neutralnosci-emisyjnej-do-2050-r-581244/
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/PL/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32021R1119