The EU went into battle yesterday to secure a path to its pledge of carbon neutrality by 2050, triggering an epic political clash over electric cars and fuel prices that could last for years.
The mammoth plan was unveiled by the European Commission and is intended to transform the bloc’s economy from fossil fuel dependency to a world of net-zero emissions.
Brussels also hopes to establish Europe as the unquestioned leader on meeting the goals of the Paris climate accord.
“Europe is now the very first continent that presents a comprehensive architecture to meet our climate ambitions,” EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels.
“We have the goal, but now we present the roadmap to how we are going to get there,” she added.
The myriad proposals include an effective ban on the sale of new petrol-driven cars from 2035, one of the boldest moves against gas-guzzlers to date that the car lobby was quick to slam as “not rational”.
The dozen draft laws were announced by the European Commission’s environment supremo Vice President Frans Timmermans, who said the political challenge was immense.
“Nothing we have presented today is going to be easy. It’s going to be bloody hard. I know that,” he said.
At the heart of the legislative package is the ambition to breathe new life into the EU’s flawed Emissions Trading System (ETS), the world’s biggest carbon market, where industry pays for the right to pollute.
The laws will now snake their way through the EU’s legislative system amid high-stakes horse-trading in the European Parliament and among the bloc’s 27 member states, egged on by industry lobbyists and green activists.
“Each state will have to defend its interests because their situations are very different in terms of industry, geography, energy supply and investment capacity,” said a senior EU diplomat.
The jockeying has already begun, with powerful interests fighting hard to win special treatment — or extra time — before the constraints of a greener Europe come into force.
Environmentalists swiftly denounced the laws as not going far enough — with the European Environmental Bureau decrying a plan that was “unfit and unfair” to fight climate change effectively.
Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg said that unless the EU “tear up” their proposals, “the world will not stand a chance of staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius of global heating”.
“That’s not an opinion, once you include the full picture, it’s a scientific fact,” she tweeted.
One major fear is resistance from the motoring public in what could resemble a continent-wide replay of the French “yellow vests” protests that erupted when the government tried to impose a new fuel tax in the name of defending the environment.
The EU’s plan imposes sustainable and probably more expensive fuels in public-facing sectors such as transport, heating and construction, in a move some MEPs called “political suicide”.
Timmermans said that what Europeans are most worried about was: “Is this going to be fair?”
“If we fail to prove that, I think the resistance will be massive,” he said.