THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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European Parliament declares climate emergency

European Parliament declares climate emergency

BERLIN - The European Parliament declared a climate emergency on Thursday, a largely symbolic move that nonetheless pressures member states to pass more decisive legislation to curb emissions.

In recent months, hundreds of similar declarations have been passed - most of them by regional or local administrations. Thursday's E.U. vote is significant because it was passed by a parliament that represents more than 500 million citizens, vastly expanding the number of people worldwide who live in jurisdictions that have declared such an emergency.

Thursday's move also puts pressure on the European Commission under its new president-elect Ursula von der Leyen, who is the first woman to hold the job.

As president of the European Union's executive branch, she commands a vast machinery of E.U. bureaucrats who manage the bloc's day-to-day business. The European Parliament is directly elected by voters across all 28 E.U. member states.

The declaration could add further pressure on von der Leyen, who has pledged to increase efforts to fight climate change. Referring to what she calls a European Green Deal, she elaborated this week that Europe would become the first continent to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2050, and that targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 must be made "more ambitious."

"If there is one area where the world needs our leadership, it is on protecting our climate," she said on Wednesday. "This is an existential issue for Europe - and for the world."

The European Commission is scheduled to present a first draft of a European Green Deal later in December.

But some members of the European Parliament and activists are already skeptical about how serious von der Leyen is about her plans and - even if she is - if her mandate gives her enough leeway to pass them.

Von der Leyen has pledged extra funds to help more carbon-intensive economies in the E.U. make the transition to climate-neutral industries, but it is still unclear where those funds will come from.

"The Commission's structural and political constraints are likely to produce a set of watered-down, piecemeal solutions," wrote David Adler and Pawel Wargan from the international activist coalition Green New Deal for Europe in an op-ed for Politico. "Meanwhile, the clock on climate and environmental breakdown keeps ticking away."

Scientists estimate that current targets would lead to up to 3 degrees Celsius of global heating and cause catastrophic changes across the globe, including floods, cyclones, long-lasting heat waves, and record-breaking wildfires, among others. To meet the goal set by the Paris agreement to stay below a 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature rise, the required cuts in emissions are now 7.6 percent per year on average, according to a 2019 report by the U.N. Environment Program.

 

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