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European Union warns it could miss climate targets for 2030

Posted December 04, 2019 6:00 am

The Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2009 file photo is an aerial view of the steel company ThyssenKrupp in Duisburg, western Germany. Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Program, says the world needs 'quick wins to reduce emissions as much as possible in 2020.' Ahead of a global climate summit in Madrid next week, her agency published a report Tuesday showing the amount of planet-heating gases released into the atmosphere hitting a new high last year.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein,file) The Associated Press

MADRID (AP) - The European Union says it will miss its targets for reducing planet-warming greenhouse gases by 2030 unless member states make a greater effort than they have so far.

The European Environment Agency said Wednesday that existing measures put the EU on course to cut its emissions by 30% in the next decade compared with 1990 levels.

Currently, the 28-nation bloc aims for a reduction of 40% by 2030, and some have even called for this target to be raised to 55%.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others have also backed a long-term target of ending virtually all of the EU's net emissions by 2050, a goal that appears far out of reach for now.

The report came as officials from almost 200 countries meet in Madrid for U.N. climate talks

Climate activist Greta Thunberg holds a sign reading 'School strike for the climate' after arriving in Lisbon aboard the sailboat La Vagabonde Tuesday, Dec 3, 2019. Thunberg has arrived by catamaran in the port of Lisbon after a three-week voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States. The Swedish teen sailed to the Portuguese capital before heading to neighboring Spain to attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference taking place in Madrid. (AP Photo/Armando Franca) The Associated Press

A pollution pod by British artist Michael Pinsky is displayed at the COP25 climate talks summit in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019. The chair of a two-week climate summit attended by nearly 200 countries warned at its opening Monday that those refusing to adjust to the planet's rising temperatures "will be on the wrong side of history." (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) The Associated Press

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