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EU announces national CO2 reduction targets

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22 December 2017

EU’s climate ministers and the EU parliament recently reached an agreement regarding the CO2 reduction targets of each country in the non-ETS sectors (construction, transport and agriculture). These sectors account for almost 60% of EU’s CO2 emissions.

Denmark has a target of 39% from 2005 levels. The Deputy Director General of the Danish Energy Anders Stouge describes the target as ambitious but not unrealistic:

-It is an ambitious target for Denmark. But if we act early and focus on electrifying and streamlining in the right amounts then we can reach the target. Right now we need to replace the combustion engines in our cars with electric engines, and oil and gas boilers with heat pumps.

-Related news: EU Agreement on Waste Reduction and Recycling

The national targets vary from 0% to 40% and have been determined with regards to each country’s level of affluency. Thus, countries like Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark have targets at the higher end of the scale. However, the agreement contains a degree of flexibility, since a number of countries can choose to put in an extra effort in the sectors that are included in the EU’s CO2 quota system (energy and industry), and in return do less to reduce CO2 emissions in the non-ETS sectors.

-If countries take advantage of the flexibility that is offered they are only postponing necessary investments to a later point in time so we would not recommend doing that, continues Anders Stouge.

The agreement still needs to be confirmed by the EU ambassadors from each country but this is expected to be a formality.

-Source: Danish Energy

 

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