Europe will implement emissions trading in buildings and transport, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today at a summit of world climate leaders.
The EU coal market is the backbone of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The plan forces power plants and industry to buy licenses when they emit carbon dioxide, effectively putting a price on pollution. Companies can buy and sell these carbon dioxide licenses, known as “emissions trading”.
Von der Leyen said the EU would expand emissions trading in new areas as part of a policy package expected in June designed to make every sector of the economy greener.
“We will make emissions trading work not only for energy and industry, but also for transport and buildings,” von der Layen told an online summit.on Climate Change hosted by the US Government.
“Coal must have its price, because nature can no longer pay the price.”
Coal prices in the EU reached a high of 47 euros per tonne today, after the EU announced yesterday a more ambitious target to reduce its emissions this decade. Analysts also boosted their price forecasts for the coming years on the basis of expectations that the new target will lead to higher demand and a lack of carbon dioxide licenses.
An important question for businesses is whether the EU will add buildings and transport to the current EU coal market, or whether it will create a new, separate system, possibly with a different carbon dioxide price.
The European Commission has also said it wants to expand the coal market to ships, but so far has not given many details on how it plans to do so.
The position of China
China will begin phasing out coal consumption in 2026-2030 as part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, President Xi Jinping said today at the Summit of Climate Leaders.
“We will strictly control the plans that produce carbon energy,” Xi said, speaking via video conference.
“We will strictly limit the increase in coal consumption during the 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) and we will phase it out gradually during the 15th five-year plan (2026-2030),” he added.
Xi’s comments suggest that China’s carbon footprint, by far the highest in the world, will peak in 2025 and then begin to decline.
Xi pledged last year that China would reach its highest emissions point before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
“China is committed to moving from a high level of carbon to carbon neutrality in a much shorter time than many developed countries may need, and this requires extremely hard work from China,” he said.
Xi also reiterated China’s call for industrialized countries to help move poorer countries to green and low-carbon growth.
Ambitious commitments are announced by the leaders
THE US President Joe Biden today called on the world to take “action” at a climate summit, revealing his government’s new goal to reduce emissions, which was welcomed by many leaders, referring to Washington’s “return” to the fight against climate change.
“I am just happy to see that the United States is coming back to work with us on climate change,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “There is no doubt that people need your input if we really want to live up to our ambitious goals,” she told Biden.
The chancellor said the new US climate commitment was sending “a clear message to the international community”.
The 46th US president promised at the start of this online two-day summit with some 40 world leaders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the world’s largest economy by 50% to 52% by 2030 compared to 2005.
This target almost doubles Washington’s previous commitment to a 26-28% reduction by 2025.
Warning of “the price of inaction”, Joe Biden called on the rest of the world to follow the American example.
“We must all take action,” he said. “We must accelerate,” Biden said, noting that “no country can solve this crisis on its own.”
One by one, the leaders invited to this teleconference, almost 100 days after Biden took over the US presidency, announced their commitments and welcomed Washington’s turn, after four years of inaction and denial, on of Donald Trump.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for “an acceleration in the implementation of the 2030 commitments”. Referring to Biden’s new commitment, he spoke of “a historic choice, on the road to Glasgow (the city that will host the COP26 climate summit in November). “There is only one goal for the coming weeks and months: to accelerate,” he said, calling for a “concrete, measurable and verifiable action plan.”
Among other things, Macron called for “a price to be given to coal”, including “the climate dimension of the cost of our investments and trade relations”, referring to the carbon tax that the European Union wants to apply at its borders. He also referred to the forthcoming May 18 meeting in Paris on the sustainable financing of African economies and called for public development banks to be pressured to finance carbon-neutral projects.
Macron acknowledged that France was one of the many countries delaying the implementation of its commitments to reduce the temperature to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, he assured that it is “in an acceleration phase”, especially in terms of wind energy production and the insulation of homes.
“Biden’s commitment changes the data,” says Boris Johnson
For his part, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also welcomed the new goals of American policy, which, as he commented, “change the data” regarding global warming.
Johnson confirmed that the UK’s target, as it announced on Tuesday, is to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035, compared to 1990.
The British Prime Minister also welcomed the speech of Chinese President Xi Jinping who said that the goal is for the world to live “in harmony with nature”.
On behalf of Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trinto has pledged that his country will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45% by 2030 compared to 2005. His Japanese counterpart, Yoshihide Suga, announced from on the other hand, it will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 46% by 2030, compared to 2013. Japan’s previous goal was to achieve a 26% reduction.
Even Brazilian President Zaich Bolsonaro, who had close ties to Trump but not to Joe Biden, has vowed to end the Amazon illegal forestation by 2030 and promote his country’s carbon neutrality by 2050. that is, a decade earlier than the previous target. He also said he would double funding for environmental programs.
“It’s an encouraging start” and “we are starting to make real progress,” Biden said after the first announcements.
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