The European Union’s executive arm has proposed a goal to cut the EU’s net emissions by 90% on 1990 levels by 2040 – with up to 3% of those reductions coming from paying other countries outside the bloc to cut their greenhouse gas pollution.
The European Commission has faced pressure from EU member states like Italy to weaken the goal and from France to introduce “flexibility”. Member states and the European Parliament will need to sign off on the proposal for it to become the EU’s official goal.
But, during a press conference in heatwave-hit Brussels today, European climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra denied that “flexibilites” like carbon offsets were a concession to these countries on what he called a “sensitive topic”.
“We truly, genuinely are convinced that they are an improvement to the system,” he told journalists, adding that the 90% goal was “ambitious” and options like carbon credits are “pragmatic” and “non-dogmatic”.
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Justifying buying offsets from abroad, he said that the “planet doesn’t discriminate where emissions are being put into the air” and that the offsets the EU buys would be “high quality”.
With many developing countries keen to sell offsets under the United Nations’ new Article 6 mechanism, Hoekstra said buying them would “help in building bridges with our friends all across the globe” and “give breathing space” for European industries which find it hard to cut their emissions.
Other governments like the UK, Norway and Canada have also left open the possibility of using carbon offsets to meet their emissions reduction targets.
Japan has gone further, saying it aims to buy offsets for 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030 and 200 million by 2040. Japan has a target to reduce emissions 46% by 2030 and 73% by 2040 below 2013 levels. In 2013, Japan’s emissions were 1,408 million tonnes.
In January 2024, Switzerland received the first ever batch of carbon credits produced through an Article 6 project – with Switzerland paying for electric buses in Thailand’s capital Bangkok. Swiss charities said the offsets were flawed as the switch to electric buses would have happened anyway without Swiss money.
Carbon offsetting loopholes
Some European climate campaigners criticised the European Commission’s offsets proposal. Many carbon credits have been exposed as failing to deliver the emissions reductions they claim.
Carbon Market Watch policy director Sam Van den plas said the “carbon offsetting loopholes” in the EU’s plan are “nothing more than distractions and delays from the climate action Europe needs”.
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Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare said that the 90% target for 2040 was aligned with the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. But, he said, the potential use of carbon credits is “outsourcing Europe’s responsibility” for meeting that.
Several campaigners pointed to a 2023 recommendation from the EU’s Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change that the bloc of 27 nations should adopt a 90-95% target.
The advisory body said that even this would be less than the EU’s fair share of global emissions reductions – and, to address the shortfall, the EU should aim to be carbon-negative after 2050 and support governments outside the EU to reduce their emissions. It did not comment on what form that support could take.
Political trouble ahead
The European Commission will now have to get EU member states and the European Parliament to agree to its proposal. Environment ministers from the EU’s member states will meet in Denmark next Thursday and Friday, where they will discuss the 2040 target.
Time is tight as the Commission and Council want to submit a 2035 emissions target as part of the EU’s updated climate plan to the United Nations by the end of September – the deadline for inclusion in a UN report synthesising the emissions reductions offered by different countries in their NDC climate plans.
The EU plans to base its 2035 target on a point between the already agreed 2030 goal of a reduction of at least 55% and the new 2040 target. The EU aims to reach net zero – where it emits no more greenhouse gases than it removes from the atmosphere – by 2050.
One EU climate negotiator told Climate Home they were “concerned” for the Danish government, which is now presiding over the Council that represents the EU’s national governments.
E3G Brussels head Manon Dufour said: “Denmark’s been handed an unnecessarily tough job – that of getting all European governments to work and agree something during the summer months – but the preparations will pay off. They have to.”
The post EU Commission proposes allowing carbon offsets to help meet 2040 climate goal appeared first on Climate Home News.
EU Commission proposes allowing carbon offsets to help meet 2040 climate goal
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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