Of the deal's 70-odd regulations aimed at making the bloc carbon-neutral and preserving its biodiversity, most have been adopted or are on their way to being. But a certain number have stalled or been shelved outright.
Here is a rundown of key measures so far:
- Transport -
-- Automobile: the bloc took the flagship decision to phase out combustion engines in all new cars from 2035, coupled with ambitious goals to create a network of electric and hydrogen charging stations.
-- Trucks: starting in 2030, carbon emissions from new trucks will have to be 45 percent below 2019 levels. All new city buses must be zero-emission as of 2035.
-- From 2025, planes flying from the EU will have to comply with a minimum level of "sustainable fuel" such as synthetics, hydrogen, or biofuel, increasing gradually until 2050.
-- The largest ships will have to commit to use more sustainable fuels, and ultimately reduce their carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
- Carbon market -
-- Carbon allowances granted to industries until now to offset their emissions will be drastically reduced, to force them to accelerate their green transition.
-- A secondary carbon market will apply to heating and road transport fuel from 2027.
-- From 2026, a carbon border tax will gradually apply to certain imports (steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizer, electricity).
- Energy, buildings -
-- In the electricity market, the EU has pledged to stabilise prices and boost investment in renewables and nuclear, through long term contracts and guaranteed price mechanisms.
-- Tougher rules to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas wells.
-- The EU will have to reach 42.5 percent of renewables in energy consumption by 2030, double today's figure.
-- All new buildings must be carbon neutral by 2030, and the energy consumption of existing housing must fall at least 16 percent by the same date.
- Biodiversity -
-- Carbon sinks -- the natural absorption of carbon through forests and fields -- must increase by 15 percent by 2030.
-- From 2025 the EU will ban the import of products from deforested land, including cocoa, coffee, soy, palm oil, wood, meat and rubber.
-- Improving the treatment of wastewater, and charging polluting industries such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics for the cost.
-- A law obliges member states to take steps to restore degraded ecosystems covering at least 20 percent of land and sea area.
-- Exporting plastic or dangerous waste towards non-OECD countries will be banned.
- Industry -
-- Regulations will be stripped back for zero-emission technologies (solar and wind power, batteries, hydrogen, and nuclear).
-- By 2030 the EU aims to extract from its own soil 10 percent of its consumption of raw materials critical for the energy transition, such as lithium and cobalt.
-- The EU will tightly regulate product design to make them more reusable, repairable and recyclable. Destroying new, unsold garments will be banned.
-- Batteries will be easier to replace and recycle. The same charger -- USB-C -- will become compulsory for all smartphones.
-- Generic environmental claims on product labels will be banned, and the term "green" much more closely defined. An anti-greenwashing text currently under negotiation would make companies back up such claims with verifiable data.
- Due diligence -
A due diligence directive setting out obligations for large companies regarding their production chain impact on the environment and human rights was agreed by European lawmakers, but has been held up due to opposition from Germany.
- Packaging, air quality: the final goals -
Last-ditch negotiations are underway to try to finalise laws on packaging (reuse, recycling) and on strengthening air quality standards, before the current legislature winds down for June's European elections.
- Farming, chemistry -
-- The European Commission ditched a controversial proposal for nutritional food labels.
-- A plan on animal welfare was watered down to cover only livestock transport, not farms themselves.
-- Brussels withdrew a text on cutting pesticide use, after it was blocked by European lawmakers.
-- A text deregulating new genomic techniques, dubbed new GMOs by their critics, was blocked by member states in December.
-- Despite a deal struck in late 2023, there is no guarantee of a final green light from lawmakers and member states on a law targeting emissions from livestock farming.
-- Brussels has indefinitely shelved a promised revision of its REACH regulation on chemical safety, unchanged since 2007.
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