Hatching a plan for 2040

This week’s Environment Council took up the topic of the EU’s ambitious climate roadmap for 2040. On Monday the Bloc’s Environment Ministers gathered in Brussels to hash out their initial ideas and opinions on the matter for the first time. Amidst the chatter, one thing was made crystal clear: something needs to be done to actually reach these targets.

A new European Commission is on the horizon, and with this Commission having heavily legislated a climate target for 2030 during this mandate under the Green Deal, attention is already shifting to the next decade. While ministers at the Council meeting generally welcomed the Commission’s Communication on the 2040 Climate Target published early last month, it became increasingly evident that our focus must pivot towards cultivating the enabling conditions for success – a perspective shared by Eurelectric.

The aspiration to achieve a 90% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels is undeniably ambitious. Getting there will require doing things right every step of the way. For us, this means putting effort into the right solutions to meet 2030 targets first, before getting too far ahead of ourselves.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch

On 6 February 2024, the EU Commission announced the next step for climate action beyond the 2030. This came in the form of a recommended 90% emissions reduction target by 2040 below 1990 levels. It is a recommendation that demands our attention, as deliberated in this week’s Environment Council. The next decade’s framework – hopefully not named the “Fit for 90 package” – ?will be important, but before that, we need to assess what we can realistically get us there.

Proposed solutions need to be carefully considered. Take, for instance, the supposed Cambrian explosion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The Impact Assessment for the 2040 target places it in every nook and cranny of the imagined 2040 society. But this seems to transgress the old saying “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”. CCS is a yet-to-be-proven solution and placing such emphasis on it can be risky and possibly counterproductive , potentially undermining our decarbonisation efforts.

Instead of pouring all our resources into animating an infant industry with an unknown payoff, we should focus in on what we know can make an impact today and what we know is cost-effective and efficient. Electrification emerges as the prudent path forward in our pursuit of a decarbonised 2040, and it needs a lot of attention.

Electrification for decarbonisation

Last year at Power Summit 2023 , we launched our Decarbonisation Speedways study, shedding light on the urgent need to rapidly deploy clean electrification in order to meet 2030 objectives. The message is clear: emissions must decrease at a faster rate than they are right now to achieve our 55% reduction target within the next six years. To do so, we must prioritise ramping up the rate of electrification.

Today, the electrification rate in Europe has been stagnate for 15 years at around 23%. That means that while we are trying hard to decarbonise the continent, 70% of Europe’s final energy demand in transport, buildings and industry relies on fossil fuels. Decarbonising these sectors through direct electrification is a sentiment strongly supported and echoed in the Commission’s 2040 target Communication.

However, let us not forget the bigger picture. Decarbonisation must be a collective effort, and all sectors, not just the ones mentioned above, should have their emissions on the chopping block. Without all society on board, reaching our 2030 – let alone 2040 targets – becomes a steeper challenge by the day. “Coordination is needed across the entire food chain”, as stated in the Commission’s Communication.

Let’s get cracking

Environment Ministers and Eurelectric are in accord that we must diversify our focus across various sectors and their respective contributions to facilitate the transition. It is imperative that each sector works together with significant collective endeavours. Today, we are already witnessing the consequences of over-reliance on certain sectors for decarbonisation. The final 10% required to achieve net zero poses an even greatest challenge, both economically and operationally.

Directing attention to industries that are still far from ?fully decarbonised will be vital in combating the effect of diminishing returns, reaching 2030 targets, and by proxy, making the 2040 vision and net zero more attainable. The power sector is pulling out all the stops towards reaching net-zero, and we’re almost there. As we showed in Power Barometer 2023 , we will be carbon neutral around 2040. But getting there requires key enablers to be in place.

One of those enablers is an Electrification Action Plan (EAP) from the Commission. In our own Electrification Action Plan , launched earlier this week, we call for the next Commission to come out with their version within the first 100 days of their mandate, proposing an indicative target of 35% electrification of final energy use across the EU by 2030. Reaching this target should be measured by the Commission too and could be done so by including an electrification indicator in the national energy and climate plans or NECPs of the EU Member States. To ensure that the transition gets the juice it needs, a fair treatment of electricity in the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) and more public awareness of the benefits of electrification are needed.

This call is not a one off, either. Together with our ten allies across the value chain in the Electrification Alliance , we launched a common manifesto for the next Commission also calling for an EAP. This was followed up by a call for it in our own election manifesto. We also called for a fairer treatment of electricity in the ETD in a joint letter this week too. While coming to a type of crescendo this week, we are already putting our EAP to work. We hope the Commission will soon get cracking on theirs.

Targets, targets, targets…

With goals and objectives set out for each coming decade, it is to feel discouraged. It’s easy to see, amidst this cascade of targets, how both governments and individuals could succumb to what can be aptly termed as ‘target fatigue’.

While looking at the end goal might feel like an insurmountable mountain to summit, we can and should shift our focus towards the smaller, more immediate milestones. It is these incremental targets, achieved through robust collective efforts, that pave the path towards the larger objectives. These objectives and more are set to be discussed and explained at length at Power Summit 2024 . Packed full of inspiring speakers and topical sessions detailing the issues affecting our sector, our programme is sure to make the path to 2040 feel not so daunting after all. Register here to feel relieved.

This week's edition written by:

Juliet Destrade , Strategic Communications Trainee - Eurelectric

With technical input by:

Nicholas A. Steinwand , Policy Communications Advisor - Eurelectric

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