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European Green Deal

The European Commission wants the deal to set ambitious climate protection targets and make Europe the world’s 1st CO2-neutral continent.

European Green Deal

The European Green Deal is undoubtedly one of the largest and most important future projects in the European Union.
The European Commission wants the deal to set ambitious climate protection targets and make Europe the world’s 1st CO2-neutral continent.

With its Green Deal, the EU has set itself far-reaching goals, aiming to make Europe the 1st climate-neutral continent by 2050.
However, the challenges are enormous.
The EU economy, which comprises the world’s 2nd-largest, is set to undergo a major transformation.

The undertaking, which EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented in her inaugural speech in December 2019, is thus not just a masterplan for the next few years.
Rather, it focusses on nothing less than the coming 3 decades, with the aim of modernising Europe sustainably and fairly.

In the form of the Paris Climate Treaty, the EU committed to limiting global warming to well under 2°C and, if possible, to 1.5°C.
The Green Deal outlines in the form of specific strategies and measures what Europe’s contribution to this will look like.
To implement the Green Deal, the EU plans to mobilise at least €1 trillion for sustainable investments:
  • The biggest share, €503 billion, should come from the EU budget
  • Unleashing a further €114 billion from national governments.
  • The next €279 billion would come mostly from the private sector
  • On top of this Brussels has promised a €100 billion 《just transition》 mechanism to help retrain workers who lose jobs in shuttered coal mines or steel factories
With the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly within the EU, the focus on the Deal diminished.
Some of the EU leaders suggested either a yearly pause or a complete discontinuation of the deal.
Many believe the current main focus of the EU's current policymaking process should be the immediate, shorter-term crisis rather than climate change.

Although all EU leaders signed off on the Deal in December 2019, disagreements in regards to the goals and their timeline to achieve each factor arose.
Poland has stated that climate neutrality by 2050 will not be a possibility for their country due to their reliance on coal as their main power source.

The European Green Deal has faced criticism also from some non-governmental organizations.
Greenpeace has argued that the deal is not drastic enough and that it will fail to slow down climate change to an acceptable degree.