THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 106 sources. The EGD, then, goes much further than a sectoral climate policy, since its cross-cutting nature and its goals extend to all EU policy, both internally and externally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting in- crease in energy prices has provided a major incentive to quicken the pace of implementing the EGD policies. The EU’s need to reduce its fossil fuel dependence and achieve strategic autonomy in the energy field, particu- larly as far as reliance on Russian imports is concerned, has never been clearer. The REPowerEU Plan, with an emphasis on both rapidly replacing Russian gas and speeding up the EU’s energy transition, is a clear ex- pression of this. In the same vein, the Commission proposed a Green Deal Industrial Plan in January 2023 intended to cement a robust green industry in the EU. Through the plan, the Commission means to introduce an industrial policy for decarbonisation in Europe that ensures a secure supply of the raw materials needed for the energy transition, the rollout of green technologies and their export to the rest of the world. To this end, the Commission is pro- posing a whole array of measures to make it easier for green industry to access funding and attract the private investment needed to develop fully. The Commission is also looking to address the risk of deindustrialisation in Europe, since in the next few years other major powers like the United States, China or Ja- pan are planning to invest hundreds of millions of euros in programmes to develop their own green industries, in direct competition with the EU. The Fit for 55 package, the expression of the EU’s renewed ambition in the face of the escalating climate emergency Unlike the EGD industrial plan, several aspects of which have still to be agreed among the member states, a good part of the Commission’s Fit for 55 legislative package is already being transformed into EU legislations. The package, which the Commission put forward in July 2021, is the first attempt to turn the EGD’s broad programme into law. It is, in fact, the embodiment in concrete proposals of the EU’s greater ambition in the face of the escalating climate emergency. Within the framework of the EGD’s general target of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, the Fit for 55 plan places a demanding milestone for the EU along the way: reducing net carbon emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. The figures that explain this greater ambition on the part of the EU are indisputable. According to succes- sive synthesis reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body in charge of assessing the science related to climate change, the ef- forts countries have made to cut their emissions to date are not sufficient to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C in this century. The World Meteorological Organization, moreover, announced in May 2023 that there is a 66% likelihood the average global temperature will temporarily exceed that 1.5 °C in the next five years. A change in current climate policies is essential, then, to stop the internationally agreed targets from becom- ing completely out of reach. That means the “national energy and climate plans” the member states produce periodically, in which they establish their own decar- bonisation goals, must set a much brisker pace of GHG emissions reductions from now until 2030. In addition, according to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report pub- lished recently, every economic sector should contribute to achieving these more demanding goals. On this topic, Spain’s presidency of the EU starting in July 2023 must provide the required impetus to arrive at the next Conference of the Parties, in Dubai in December 2023 (COP 28), with the member states’ energy and cli- mate plans revised in line with the EU’s new ambitions. Remember that the EU already approved the European Climate Law in 2021 precisely to safeguard and give bind- ing status both to the European commitment to becom- ing a climate-neutral continent by 2050 and to raising the intermediate (2030) emissions reductions target to 55%. Similarly, the Fit for 55 plan will require bringing cur- rent European legislation on climate, energy, transport, land use and taxation into line with these new goals. The Commission has proposed an assortment of legis- lative instruments covering such different fields as the greater use of renewable energies (40% of the energy consumed); more energy efficiency (particularly regard- ing buildings); a swifter rollout of low-carbon modes of