The EU should cut its emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040, according to a new roadmap released by the European Commission.
This will require an expanded and emissions-free power system within 16 years and an 80% reduction in the use of fossil fuels for energy, the new guidance states.
The goal is designed to bridge the gap between bloc’s existing short- and long-term emissions reduction targets.
It kicks off a lengthy process in which EU politicians and institutions will grapple over the details of the proposal before it is cemented into law.
The bloc is about to enter a major period of transition as a new European Parliament is due to be elected in June, followed by a new commission, the EU’s executive arm. The result of this could be a surge in opposition towards climate policy as EU politics swings to the right.
The recommendations come as farmers have been taking to the streets across Europe to voice their anger about environmental policies and other matters.
Meanwhile, business leaders are worried about EU industries maintaining their competitiveness against the likes of China and the US as they decarbonise.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines how the commission has tried to deal with these concerns, while also setting out an ambitious strategy that aligns with the EU’s domestic and international climate obligations.
- What has the commission proposed?
- What does it mean for the EU’s next Paris pledge?
- What does it mean for energy, the economy and industry?
- Who is supporting or opposing the target?
- Where did the target come from?
- What does the industrial carbon management strategy say?
- What comes next?
What has the commission proposed?
The European Commission recommends that the EU should cut its “net” emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040.
To meet the goal, emissions would need to fall to “less than” 850m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), while “up to” 400MtCO2e would be removed from the atmosphere using both carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and “land-based” solutions such as tree planting.
Taken together, this would reduce net emissions to 450MtCO2e in 2040, which would be 90% below 1990 levels and 86% below the figure seen in 2022.
The proposal is required under the European climate law. It is an interim target on the way to the EU’s wider goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
It follows the EU’s existing target of cutting emissions by “at least 55%” by 2030. As it stands, the EU is not on track to achieve this target.
Current projections suggest that, even if all planned climate policies are implemented, the bloc’s emissions are set to fall 48% by 2030, rather than 55%. Member states are due to submit updated plans in June that could close this shortfall.
As the chart below shows, adding a new 90% reduction target for 2040 would require even more stringent climate policies, to drive a steeper decline in emissions. Emissions are currently projected to fall 60% by 2040 and 64% by 2050.
In its assessment, the commission details what kind of “enabling policy conditions” would be “necessary” to close the gap to the 90% goal, if it gets formally adopted.
The power sector should approach “full decarbonisation in the second half of the 2030s”, and reach it by 2040, according to the commission. Renewables “complemented by nuclear energy” should generate over 90% of the EU’s electricity by this date, it adds.
With low-carbon electrification driving economy-wide decarbonisation, the share of electricity in the EU’s final energy consumption would double from 25% to 50%, it continues.
The commission says “all zero and low-carbon energy solutions” will be required – including CCS and nuclear – while “solar and wind will make up the vast majority of renewable energy solutions”.
(An earlier leaked draft placed even more emphasis on renewables, stating that “renewables such as solar and wind will make up the vast majority of solutions”.)
The commission impact assessment suggests a very small amount of abated fossil fuels would continue to be used in the power sector in 2040, with gas-fired CCS plants making up 3% of electricity generation – down from the 36% share of fossil-fueled power in 2021.
This inclusion of CCS in the power sector has drawn criticism from some groups. In its assessment of the proposal, Climate Action Tracker stated it was “absolutely not needed in the power sector”.
According to the commission, the rollout of low-carbon electricity would be accompanied by an 80% reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels for energy, including a phase-out of coal and an effective phase-out of unabated gas power, by 2040.
Meanwhile, the use of gas and oil for heat, transport and industry use “should decrease over time in a way that guarantees the EU’s security of supply”.
The commission says that implementing existing measures “will allow emissions to decrease by close to 80% in 2040 relative to 2015” in the transport sector.
A key focus of the recommendations is an “industry decarbonisation deal”. The commission calls for a “firmer and renewed European agenda for sustainable industry and competitiveness” that builds on the Green Deal industrial plan, released last year.
Prominent references to cutting emissions from agriculture – included in leaked draft proposals – have been removed from the commission’s final recommendations.
An earlier draft stated that livestock and fertiliser use would be “core areas” for emissions cuts by 2040, adding that “it should be possible” to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions by “at least” 30% by 2040. The final version includes a vaguer reference to “agricultural activities play[ing] an important role” in achieving the 2040 target.
This change was reportedly a response to recent protests from European farmers that have targeted EU environmental policies, among a long list of concerns.
The decision came under fire from NGOs, with the European Environmental Bureau referring to it as “shortsighted” in light of the sector’s slow progress in cutting emissions.
Other recommendations included an extra 1.5% of GDP being invested annually in the low-carbon transition, compared to 2011-2020. The commission emphasises the need to move subsidies away from fossil fuels and lean on the private sector to “mobilise” funding.
The overarching recommendation from the commission is based on an assessment of three options for the 2040 target – an “up to” 80% emissions reduction, an 85-90% reduction and a 90-95% reduction.
The commission says only aiming for the 90-95% goal would align with official scientific advice, signal a “clear transition path away from fossil fuels as called for by COP28” and avoid “put[ting] at risk the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement”. (See: Where did the target come from?)
However, the commission only recommends the lower bound of this 90-95% target. Unlike the 2030 goal, it does not say the EU should be aiming for “at least” a 90% emissions cut.
While all three targets require “similar levels of investment”, the commission says the 90-95% option relies more on “novel low-carbon technologies”, such as CCS. It also requires more raw materials and brings more investment forward to the 2030s, the document notes.
The commission proposals will be subject to approval and negotiation with EU member states and the European Parliament. (See: What comes next?)
What does it mean for the EU’s next Paris pledge?
The 2040 target will also guide the EU’s next international climate pledge under the Paris Agreement, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC).
Parties to the international climate regime are obliged to come forward with more ambitious targets every five years. The deadline for the next round of NDCs is ahead of the COP30 summit at the end of 2025.
This process is supposed to close the gap between existing pledges to cut emissions and the ambition required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal.
The EU’s current NDC pledges to cut net emissions to “at least” 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. This aligns with the at least 55% emissions reduction target of the European climate law.
In their next round of NDCs, parties are expected to submit emissions-cutting goals for 2035.
However, the European Commission proposals do not recommend a specific 2035 target. According to the impact statement, only Denmark advocated for an “additional interim target for 2035”.
Instead, the commission says that a new “greenhouse gas figure for the EU in 2035” will be “derived once the 2040 target is agreed”.
In practice, experts tell Carbon Brief, this means drawing a straight line from the 2030 target to the 2040 target and using the middle value as the NDC goal for 2035. (This would amount to roughly a 73% emissions cut by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.)
Ignacio Arróniz Velasco, a senior policy adviser with the thinktank E3G, tells Carbon Brief that the commission sees this as preferable to opening up extra negotiations around an additional climate target for 2035:
“The commission is being careful of this because if they recognise it as an additional target then you can actually have a political conversation about where you put it…It risks becoming the classic thing in which European leaders would probably go head to head and we may lose a lot of political capital discussing that.”
Rather than following a linear emissions path from 2030 to 2040, EU scientific advisers suggested the bloc could front-load its climate ambitions. This would mean faster emissions cuts in the short term, in order to achieve a fairer international transition. (See: Where did the target come from?)
In a press briefing ahead of the target’s launch, Linda Kalcher from thinktank Strategic Perspectives said the EU should be setting an ambitious 2035 target as early as possible, in order to show leadership and encourage other countries to do the same. She stated:
“While the politics of that might be difficult…It’s really important that the Europeans are advancing on it. It might be that we have [US president Donald] Trump again so it would be an even stronger approach by the Europeans to respond to that.”
Another issue is the timeline for the EU’s new climate targets.
The global stocktake text agreed at COP28 calls on all parties to submit their new NDCs “at least nine to 12 months in advance” of COP30. This would mean around the first quarter of 2025, months before the new 2040 target is likely to be legislated (see: What comes next?)
However, according to Kalcher, if EU member state leaders agree on a new target at the European Council meeting in June, then the new NDC could be submitted on that basis. (The last NDC was submitted in a similar way, when the European Council approved the at least 55% target following a European Commission proposal.)
“The EU can move very fast, if it needs to, on issues that seem to inevitably take a long time. If it’s necessary, those processes can be accelerated,” Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), tells Carbon Brief.
What does it mean for energy, the economy and industry?
Reducing emissions in line with the proposed 2040 target would entail investments of €1.5tn a year in the energy and transport sectors, according to the commission.
Overall, it says this would have a minimal impact on EU GDP by mid-century, despite implying “transformations in production and consumption patterns” across the economy. The recommendations notes:
“Growing the economy on the basis of fossil fuels and resource wastage is not sustainable. The EU has shown that climate action and sustaining economic growth go hand in hand by decoupling growth from greenhouse gas emissions.”
In addition, it says investment to meet the 2040 target would avoid €2.4tn in climate-related economic losses during 2031-2050 and cut net costs for fossil fuel imports by €2.8tn over the same period.
Investment in the energy system would need to be close to €660bn (or 3.2% of GDP) per year over the period 2031-2050, while yearly spending on transport would need to be about €870 (or 4.3% of GDP), it states.
This investment would allow energy emissions to reach near-zero by 2040 and transport emissions to drop by 69-78% compared to 2015, shown by the orange and dark grey wedges in the chart below, respectively.
Meanwhile the proposals would see agricultural emissions fall by 30% (yellow), residential and service emissions by 77-85% (light grey) and emissions from industry by 56-84% (blue).
Increasing carbon removals from land-based (green) and industrial sources (red) would bring net emissions down further (dashed black line) and enable net-zero emissions to be reached in 2050, despite ongoing residual emissions in some sectors – notably agriculture.
For the energy sector, the European Commission has called on member states to increase the level of ambition in their national energy and climate plan updates, which are due in June 2024.
For its own part, the commission says it will pursue policies to ensure a fast deployment of renewable energy, as well as zero and low-carbon solutions, and to further development of energy efficiency. It points to initiatives such as the EU Solar PV Alliance and Wind Charter as existing examples of this.
Higher renewable shares will require “substantial” investments in the expansion of the EU’s electricity networks, as well as in upgrading to smarter and more flexible grids, the commission notes.
The recent EU grid action plan is a “first step” in this direction, it continues, the experience from which will allow a “comprehensive masterplan for accelerating the development of the European integrated energy infrastructure”.
By 2040, coal should have been phased out in the energy sector and oil in transport is expected to represent about 60% of the remaining energy uses of fossil fuels. The rest would be gas, used in industry, buildings and the power sector.
As seen in the chart below, final energy consumption from coal (brown) drops to virtually nothing across all three of the scenarios outlined by the European Commission, as well as its LIFE scenario which looks at societal changes to a more sustainable lifestyle.
(The “S1”, “S2” and “S3” scenarios refer to the three different 2040 target ranges considered by the commission. The recommended 90% goal corresponds to S3.)
Overall, fossil fuel consumption falls by 80% in 2040 under the S3 scenario, with oil (red) and gas (yellow) continuing to play a minor role in the energy mix. By 2050, this declines further, with just oil forming part of the mix.
Electricity (blue) grows to dominate the energy mix, with direct use of energy from renewables (green), district heating (orange), hydrogen (pale blue) and “synthetic fuels” (grey), making up the rest of the total.
The gas market structure would have to change significantly, according to the commission, to reflect the increasing role for low-carbon and renewable liquid fuels and gases.
Additionally, gas infrastructure would need to adapt to decentralised production, as some of it is repurposed for “e-fuels”, advanced biofuels and hydrogen
Ultimately, the transition away from fossil fuels will see power prices fall, but investments will be needed to avoid obstacles in some areas having knock-on effects on wider decarbonisation as the economy is electrified, the report continues. It is critical to ensure financing tools are available to support these investments, the commission notes.
The commission emphasises the need for a “just transition that leaves no one behind”. It references the need for measures to support those who are “dependent on carbon-intensive activities”, and says policies could be used to ensure lower-income and middle-income households are protected from steep increases in energy prices in the interim.
In order to ensure the Green Deal “delivers for people”, the commission’s recommendations include investing in reskilling and upskilling of the workforce, support for labour market transitions and targeted income support measures.
The impact of the net-zero transition on employment will vary by sector and region, it says, with those that depend on fossil fuels undergoing a “fundamental transformation”.
EU cohesion policy – an instrument designed to support the “economic diversification and reconversion of impacted territories and communities – will play an essential role in supporting regions most affected by the transition, it notes.
Energy-intensive industry should also be supported, the commission says, allowing it to bridge the transition period when it faces the “dual challenge of investing in clean production methods when available, and coping with high energy prices”.
Concern over the “deindustrialisation” of Europe was raised in the run up to the proposed 2040 climate target.
In January, Euractiv quoted European steel association Eurofer, which stated the 90% target is “possible only if there is the certainty of having access to competitive clean energy in unprecedented quantities, while levelling the playing field with other regions of the world that do not share the same climate ambition”.
At the time, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the Financial Times that the bloc must not be “lured” into a “false narrative” that climate action would undermine the competitiveness of business.
He added that despite “significant worries” from industry, he was “absolutely convinced” the EU could continue to have a “world class, second to none, business environment”.
The commission’s recommendations emphasise that a “firmer and renewed European agenda for sustainability industry and competitiveness” would enable a successful transition over the next decade.
It says it will target a conducive regulatory and financing environment to attract investment and production to Europe. The Critical Raw Materials Act, and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will be key instruments to deliver an “open strategic autonomy”, it adds.
Additionally, the commission says the Net Zero Industry Act – a provision deal on which was also agreed by Council and the European Parliament on 6 February – is a “concrete step”, which covers faster permitting, focused R&D investments and changes to public procurement.
Public investment through both the Recovery and Resilience Facility and InvestEU is expected to mobilise “well-targeted” support for industry, it continues.
The recommendations recognise the global competition that the EU faces, highlighting China’s supply-chain dominance and the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. Europe must remain a “sovereign and resilient economy” throughout the net-zero transition, it notes.
In a statement, Marco Mensink, director general of the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) says industry investments will need to be a factor of six higher than today:
“This enormous challenge comes just as industry faces the most severe economic downturn in a decade, demand is falling, and investments move to other regions. With [the] US economy closing its borders, Chinese overcapacity and exports will target Europe even more. Our companies fight against this challenge every day. Sites are being closed, production halted, people let go. Europe needs a business case, urgently”.
One key sector is agriculture. The commission highlights its decision to set up a strategic dialogue on the future of the agriculture sector in order to “jointly shape the transition”.
It is designed to address issues such as viable livelihoods, reducing burdens and ensuring competitive and sustainable food production.
Who is supporting or opposing the target?
Ahead of the European Commission’s new emissions target, numerous countries expressed their support for “ambitious global climate action” in a joint letter from a coalition of countries.
Although it does not specify a percentage reduction, the letter can be interpreted as support for the 90% target, according to Politico.
The letter expresses support for the conclusions of the global stocktake at COP28, stating that it is “crucial” that the EU translates this into “concrete ambitious action to send a strong political signal that the EU will lead by example”.
However, the letter recognises that setting an ambitious target will be a “considerable task” and that there is a need to ensure climate action is an “opportunity for all”.
The letter was signed by Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal.
The recently-elected Polish government has also hinted at support for a 90% goal. In January, Poland’s deputy climate minister Urszula Zielińska, announced that the country would be stepping up its efforts to fight climate change.
She said the EU “absolutely needs to embrace ambitious targets, and we need to embrace the 90% emission reduction target”, Politico reported. She later clarified that this was not Poland’s official position.
Nonetheless, Zielińska’s statement illustrates a major shift for Poland, which has traditionally pushed back against EU climate action. It comes as the country looks to drop lawsuits brought by Poland’s previous governments against EU climate policies, according to Reuters.
Few countries have publicly opposed the 90% proposal. At a meeting of the EU commissioner’s chiefs of staff on 5 February, only the cabinet of Hungarian commissioner Olivér Várhelyi opposed the target, according to Politico.
Strategic Perspectives’ Kalcher tells Carbon Brief that discussions on the matter had been “much more constructive than usual”. While countries did have concerns, “nobody was outright dismissive”. She adds:
“Even the fact that they considered [the 90% target] means that now it’s on the table domestically, and it can’t be dismissed. If you would have asked me two years ago, if people would consider a 90% target, I would have said no.”
In the impact assessment, published alongside the release of the proposed 90% target, the commission notes that most public authorities welcomed the process behind the proposals.
The Danish ministry of climate, energy and utilities firms, the Bavarian state parliament and the UN, among others, all called for an acceleration of the transition.
However, the Polish ministry of climate and environment and the government of Flanders both expressed the view that setting the 2040 target should be postponed, the document notes. (Consultation on the 2040 goal was held last year, before the Polish elections.)
They stated that it was still too uncertain to predict the impact of an EU-wide climate target for 2040, and that the implementation of measures to reach the 2030 target should remain the priority.
While there has been limited pushback from EU member state governments, some political groups within the bloc have taken a more cautious approach to the 90% proposal.
Peter Liese, the chief environmental spokesperson for the centre-right European People’s Party – the largest grouping in the European Parliament – said on 5 February that the group will “consider” the 90% reduction in exchange for other concessions, including dropping a ban on “PFAS forever chemicals”.
In the run up to the release of the commission’s target, there has also been opposition to climate action by far-right and nationalist parties, Irish website the Journal reported. (See: What comes next?).
In addition, farmers have been protesting across Europe about competition from cheaper imports, rising energy costs and environmental rules. (See Carbon Brief’s recent analysis on how these protests relate to climate change.)
A reference to the agricultural sector cutting its emissions by 30% between 2015 and 2040, as part of the 90% goal, was dropped from an earlier draft of the commission’s proposal, according to Politico– reportedly in response to farmers’ protests. (See: What does it mean for energy, the economy and industry?)
Where did the target come from?
The proposed new 2040 climate target is informed by advice from the commission’s official scientific advisers.
Under the 2021 European climate law, a group of scientific advisers known as the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC) was established to bring independent research-based analysis to EU policymakers.
In June 2023, the ESABCC released its scientific advice for setting a 2040 climate target, along with a greenhouse gas “budget” for 2030-2050. (The budget is an estimate of how much the bloc can emit over the 20-year period while still being in line with the global ambition to keep warming to 1.5C).
It said that the EU should aim to cut its emissions by a net 90-95% by 2040, compared to 1990 levels. This level of emissions reductions would keep the bloc within a proposed budget of 11-14bn tonnes of CO2e from 2030-2050, as set out in the scientific advice.
To come up with this figure, the ESABCC considered more than 1,000 different pathways for how the EU can reach its longer-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and keep in line with the 1.5C temperature aspiration.
The ESABCC noted there are different pathways that the EU can take to reach its emissions targets. However, these pathways have “common features”, including:
- A phase-out of coal power by 2030.
- A phase-out of “unabated” gas power by 2040.
- A “large-scale deployment” of wind, solar and hydro energy.
- A “substantial decrease” in fossil fuel imports.
- A “considerable decrease” in final energy consumption by 2040, particularly driven by a switch to electric vehicles.
- A “rapid scale-up” of carbon removal techniques.
In addition to assessing how the EU can get to net-zero, the ESABCC also examined how the EU can make a fair contribution to global efforts to reduce emissions, by considering various “equity principles“. Its advice says:
“Under some of these principles, the EU has already exhausted its fair share of the global emissions budget.”
Because “none of the assessed pathways towards climate neutrality fully align with the fair share estimates”, the ESABCC recommended taking “additional measures to account for this shortfall”.
These measures include pursuing the upper range of the 90-95% emissions reduction target for 2040, as well as helping non-EU countries reduce their emissions.
The ESABCC added that the EU could “increase fairness” further by increasing the ambition of its “fit for 55%” pledge, a target to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030. The ESABCC said the EU could aim to cut emissions “up to 70% or more by 2030”.
In its analysis of the ESABCC’s advice, the climate thinktank E3G said it represented the “first stress test” for whether the European Commission would fully integrate scientific advice into its policymaking.
In its coverage of the 2040 proposals, Ireland’s the Journal noted that the commission opted for the “lower end of the recommended range” from the ESABCC, by choosing the 90% emissions reduction target.
In a statement, the independent scientific research group Climate Action Tracker said it was “disappointing” that the commission opted for the lower end of what was recommended by its advisers. Mia Moisio, who leads Climate Action Tracker, said:
“[The commission] should increase its 2040 target to at least the recommended 95% reduction.”
What does the industrial carbon management strategy say?
As well as setting out plans for reducing emissions by 90% on 1990 levels by 2040, the European Commission has also released a first-of-its-kind blueprint for how removing CO2 from the atmosphere can help the bloc reach its climate targets.
The commission’s 27-page industrial carbon management communication describes techniques to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as an “an essential complement” to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.
Such techniques will be needed to account for sectors where “emissions are particularly difficult or costly to reduce”, the commission says. This includes certain industrial processes that play a large role in the EU’s economy, such as cement production.
The world’s authority in climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in its most recent assessment of solutions that using CO2 removal in difficult-to-abate sectors is now “unavoidable”, if the world is to meet its climate goals.
However, the failure of CO2 removal technologies to contribute meaningfully to climate action to date and the widespread touting of such techniques by fossil-fuel companies leaves many NGOs wary.
In a statement issued before the industrial carbon management communication was released, 140 NGOs described it as a “smokescreen for continued use of fossil fuels”.
In the Net-zero Industry Act released in 2023, the commission proposed that the EU develop means to remove at least 50MtCO2 per year by 2030.
In the new communication, it says that the EU should capture 280MtCO2 per year by 2040 and 450MtCO2 by 2050. (These figures come from modelling for the impact assessment report for the EU’s 2040 climate target. They represent an average of the “S2” and “S3” scenarios included in this report, representing 2040 targets of 85-90% and 90-95%, respectively.)
The communication notes that “the scale of this endeavour is large”. The target for 2030 would involve removing around the same as the annual emissions of Sweden, it says. The target for 2050 involves removing the equivalent of Italy or France’s annual emissions.
The top chart below, taken from the new communication, shows how the scale of carbon capture should increase from 2030 to 2050, according to the projections.
Dark blue indicates projected CO2 removal from “carbon capture and storage”, a technology where CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored underground or in the sea. Light blue, meanwhile, indicates projected CO2 removal from “carbon capture and utilisation”, where captured CO2 is used to produce synthetic products, such as fuels and chemicals.
The bottom chart shows projections of where CO2 will be captured from, including industrial process emissions (orange), fossil fuel emissions (grey), biogenic emissions (green) and direct air capture (blue).
The communication says that, until 2030, “the main focus will be on capturing CO2 from process emissions as well as some emissions from fossil and biogenic CO2 sources”.
Process emissions originate from industrial processes involving raw materials, while biogenic emissions result from changes to the natural carbon cycle or from burning biomass.
In a still-emergent technique called “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS), biomass is burned with the resultant emissions captured, in theory leading to the net removal of CO2.
Most scenarios for how developed nations can reach their climate goals use large amounts of BECCS. However there are concerns that growing the biomass required would take up large amounts of land that might be needed for nature restoration or food production.
The communication adds that, by 2040, “close to half of the CO2 that is captured annually would have to come from biogenic sources or directly from the atmosphere [through direct air capture]”.
“Direct air capture” is a technology that uses chemical reactions to remove CO2 from the air, as opposed to at the point of emissions. The technology is still in its infancy. Globally, direct air capture currently captures just 0.01MtCO2 per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A major barrier to its development is that the technology currently requires very large amounts of energy to run.
The communication notes that rolling out direct air capture will “require significant additional energy to power this energy-intensive process”. It also notes that removing CO2 from biogenic sources (mostly BECCS) will require “the sustainable sourcing of biomass”.
In its reaction to the communication, the climate NGO Carbon Gap “welcomes” the new projections and says they provide “much-needed visibility and predictability on the role of CO2 removal in achieving the EU’s climate goals”.
However, by focusing only on emissions from industrial and biogenic sources or direct air capture, the projections are “missing a whole suite of promising high-durability CO2 removal methods”, it adds. This includes enhanced rock weathering, a technique involving sprinkling rock dust on crop fields in a bid to speed up the natural weathering process, which captures CO2.
From 2030 to 2050, some carbon capture will be used for fossil-fuel emissions, according to the communication’s projections.
The communication says that, despite fossil fuels being rapidly phased out in the EU under the proposals, there will still be some use in the “form of oil in the transport sector and some gas for heating and industrial purposes”.
The wording on fossil fuels differs from an earlier leaked draft of the communication, which said that the power sector is projected to capture 100MtCO2 from fossil fuels and biogenic sources by 2050.
The 100MtCO2 figure was criticised by various groups. This includes the climate and energy NGO Bellona, which said using carbon capture for fossil-fuelled power generation “is both expensive and inefficient, given the breadth of alternative sources of clean electricity”.
Kalcher, from the thinktank Strategic Perspective, also told Carbon Brief she found the 100MtCO2 figure “very worrying”.
To achieve the transformation set out in its projections, the communication says that a “common approach and vision are needed to establish a single market for industrial carbon management solutions”.
It notes there are already policies in place to support development of carbon capture.
This includes the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the bloc’s “cap and trade” scheme for putting a price on CO2 emissions. The communication says the ETS has “incentivised the capture of CO2 for permanent storage in the EU and the European Economic Area”.
It also includes the Net-zero Industry Act, which “recognises carbon capture and
storage as strategic net-zero technologies and supports project deployment with regulatory
measures, including accelerated permitting procedures”, according to the communication.
But, achieving the EU’s carbon capture goals will require “more ambitious and well-coordinated policies at national level, as well as strategic infrastructure planning at EU level”, the communication says. It adds:
“Achieving this vision of a well-functioning and competitive market for captured CO2 requires partnership with industry and member states, and resources to develop a coherent policy framework that provides regulatory certainty and incentives for investments in carbon capture, storage, use and carbon removals.”
Reacting to the communication, Julia Michalak, EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), said she “welcomes the acknowledgement of carbon trading as a major instrument to deliver net-zero cost-efficiently”, but added:
“However, carbon markets must change to deliver net-zero as the mechanism as we know it will not take us there. It is crucial that the right policy incentives are introduced with greater urgency for removals technologies to develop at scale. This includes the recognition of industrial carbon removals that can be measured with a high level of accuracy under the EU ETS.”
What comes next?
The EU has a complex political timetable this year, which will likely have a significant impact on how smoothly the 2040 target can be adopted.
The European Commission has now issued its initial “communication” with recommendations for the new goal. This launches a process of high-level negotiations among European leaders to reach a final decision on what form the 2040 goal will take.
This will be followed by a period of debate between member states and the European Parliament, which could result in the target being adopted into law towards the end of 2025.
Climate ministers from EU member states will initially be tasked with considering the target and the wider package of climate measures, starting at the next Council of the EU environment meeting on 25 March and followed by another on 17 June.
These discussions will cover not only the headline 2040 target, but also highly political details such as sectoral targets and how to finance the transition.
The council, which represents member state governments, must endorse the new target for it to proceed. The council’s rotating presidency is currently held by Belgium, but Hungary – a nation that has pushed against climate action – is set to take over at the start of July.
Following these ministerial discussions, there is an expectation that a final target will be agreed by member state heads of government – possibly when they meet at the next European Council summit on 27-28 June, observers tell Carbon Brief.
At that summit, leaders will also be discussing the most pressing issues facing the bloc as part of its five-year “strategic agenda”. This does not specifically include climate targets, but covers relevant topics, such as energy and “resilience and competitiveness”.
It would “make a lot of sense” for the European Council to wave the 2040 target through alongside the strategic agenda, Manon Dufour, executive director of E3G Brussels, tells Carbon Brief.
Kalcher, from Strategic Perspectives, agreed, telling a press briefing that this would “inform the work of the next European Commission, and it would be a very good signal to the international level”. However, such a decision would require consensus between leaders and, as Politico noted, “Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán holds veto power”.
Meanwhile, the bloc will also be gearing up for the European Parliament elections, which will be held between 6-9 June.
This will be followed by the election of the new European Commission president and commissioners, which will depend on the make-up of the new parliament. Therefore, the commission charged with putting the proposed target into law could be very different to the one that proposed it.
Discussions around the new target will be taking place at a time of great flux. This may affect member states’ willingness to push ahead with decisions.
Ahead of the European Council summit at the end of June, questions over which coalitions hold the balance of power within the new European Parliament, who the new commission president is and who their commissioners are, will remain open.
It could be that the new commission remains roughly the same as the one that proposed the 2040 target in February, led by Von der Leyen.
However, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has forecast a “populist right coalition”, consisting of conservatives, Christian democrats and representatives of the “radical right” taking over from the “super grand coalition” of centrist groups that currently dominates parliament. Such a “sharp right turn” could threaten the future of climate policy and the EU “green deal” in general, the ECFR concludes
(According to Politico, even Von der Leyen and climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, both from the centre-right European People’s Party that currently dominates EU politics, have recently faced “rebellion” from within their party over the 2040 target.)
Amid such political uncertainty, the European Council’s approval of the 2040 target could be delayed until the next summit at the end of October, or even the one after that in mid-December. If the latter, it would push the decision past the COP29 climate summit, which could affect the EU’s standing there and its ability to pressure other nations into setting stronger climate targets of their own.
Other external events, including G7 and G20 meetings, and the upcoming US presidential election, could also affect EU leaders’ momentum in setting an ambitious target.
With the approval of member states, the new commission will make an official “legislative proposal” to amend the existing climate law by adding in a 2040 target. (Under the 2021 EU climate legislation, this was meant to happen “within six months” of last year’s COP28 summit, but it is expected to be delayed due to the European Parliament elections.)
This will be followed by a “co-legislation” process where the European Parliament and Council of the EU must agree on the new legislation. This could take several months, meaning the final outcome might emerge close to COP30 at the end of 2025.
Key dates for EU climate politics in 2024 can be seen in the calendar below.
| 6 February | European Commission releases its 2040 climate “communication” |
| 21-22 March | European Council summit |
| 25 March | Environment Council of the EU Council meeting |
| 26 March | “Climate high level” meeting between EU climate ministers |
| 19-21 May | G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan |
| 6-9 June | European Parliament elections |
| 17 June | Environment Council of the EU Council meeting |
| 27-28 June | European Council summit |
| June-July | European Council proposes the next European Commission president candidate |
| 1 July | Hungary takes over the EU Council presidency from Belgium |
| Mid-July | Election of new European Commission president in the European Parliament |
| September | Hearings of new commissioners in European Parliament committees |
| November | New European Commission is confirmed and starts its term in office |
| 5 November | US presidential election |
| 11-24 November | COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan |
| 18-19 November | G20 summit, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
The post Q&A: European Commission calls for 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: European Commission calls for 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040
Last month, COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035.
In an interview with Carbon Brief, Kurum says that the target was not a political choice, but instead reflects the latest evidence on “what is needed to keep 1.5C within reach”.
The ongoing Hormuz crisis means there is an “urgent” need for renewables and electrification, which are the “surest and cleanest way to protect citizens” from high energy prices.
Kurum says that the Brazilian and Ethiopian presidencies of COP30 and COP32, as well as the EU, UK and Canada, have welcomed the target.
He adds that “all have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31”.
In the interview, Kurum – who is also Turkey’s minister of environment, urbanisation and climate change – tells Carbon Brief where the target came from and what he expects to happen next.
Carbon Brief: You recently launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035. Where did this idea come from?
Murat Kurum: The “35 by 35” target is grounded in technical data and based on the IEA [International Energy Agency] and IRENA [International Renewable Energy Agency] analysis of what is needed to keep [the 1.5C Paris Agreement target] within reach. The level was not chosen politically. Rather, it reflects what the science and the energy modelling tell us is required.
CB: Why do you think an electrification target is important right now?
MK: The case for the target is urgent right now. The latest war in the Gulf has made energy diversification – and, in particular, renewable energy transition and electrification – a top global priority, because it is the surest and cleanest way to protect citizens around the world from high and volatile energy prices.
At a time of real fragmentation in international relations, a single, shared target is needed to focus global efforts by aligning governments, businesses and investors behind a common benchmark and to send a clear market signal.
CB: Which countries are supporting this target so far?
MK: The reaction so far has been extremely positive and, while we presented our target at the UN June climate meetings in Bonn, our earlier conversations with parties at both the Petersberg and Copenhagen climate dialogues paved the way for this launch.
For example, the EU, UK, and Canada have welcomed the target, as have the Brazilian COP30 and Ethiopian COP32 presidencies. All have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31.
This support has been reflected in the business community as well, with polling by the We Mean Business Coalition showing that 90% of businesses expect to have largely electrified their operations by 2035 and that 88% expect electrification will make their business more competitive.
CB: How do you hope and expect to see this taken forward at the COP? Could it be in the formal COP outcomes, or part of the second global stocktake?
MK: We are now taking electrification forward as an “action agenda” initiative to bring actors together and drive progress. The action agenda and the [formal COP] negotiations are separate, but complementary, with different processes and thresholds, and it is too early to say what all countries might be able to agree in the negotiations. That is for parties to determine as the year progresses.
We are focused and determined to use COP31 as a moment to spark a global conversation about electrification.
CB: What are the key priorities for reaching the target?
MK: The critical sectors for reaching the target are buildings, transport and industry, which together account for around 45% of global emissions. Financial support for the developing world and investment in grids and infrastructure is also crucial.
The target also builds on COP28’s target to triple renewable energy capacity and seeks to take advantage of the tumbling cost of renewable power and other technologies critical to the energy transition. This is a journey that Turkey itself is taking ambitious steps on, including our plan to reach 120GW [gigawatts] of renewable capacity by 2035.
This interview was first published in the 10 July 2026 edition of Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed weekly newsletter. Sign up for free.
The post Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’
Climate Change
DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
‘Catastrophic’ climate impacts
RECORD HEAT: Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record – some 3C above average – according to analysis covered by the Guardian. It said the finding came “as the UK enters its third heatwave of the year and wildfires ravage France and Spain”. Le Monde said 10,000 people had been evacuated due to wildfires in southern France.
‘EXCESS DEATHS’: The June heatwave killed more than 2,700 people in France, according to a guest post analysis for Carbon Brief. Similar analysis for Germany said there had been more than 5,000 “excess deaths”, reported Bloomberg. Meanwhile, an ongoing heatwave in the US has killed at least 30 people, said USA Today.
STORM TEST: Floods have killed 39 people in Guangxi province in southern China, said state-run newspaper China Daily. Scientists warned that climate change and the weather phenomenon El Niño are exposing China to “catastrophic storms” that will test its resilience in 2026, reported Reuters. The nation’s latest official climate report found that “extreme weather and climate events…have become more frequent and severe”, said China National Radio.
Around the world
- EU ELECTRIFICATION: The European Commission is set to unveil a 2040 target for EU electrification on 17 July, reported Bloomberg. Citing a leaked draft, it said the plan would aim to cut oil use in half and gas use by two-thirds.
- PEAKING PLAN: China has published an “action plan” for peaking emissions during the 15th five-year plan period to 2030, reported Xinhua. It lists targets including “new energy vehicles” making up 30% of cars on the road by 2030, said Reuters.
- CLIMATE ‘FLAT EARTHER’: The Trump administration has appointed Matthew Wielicki, described by Politico as a “climate critic”, to lead the office in charge of the US national climate assessment. Common Dreams quoted a scientist describing the move as “like putting a flat-earther in charge of NASA”.
- UGANDAN SUIT: A group of farmers from Uganda have launched a legal suit in London against the East African oil pipeline, according to Climate Home News.
23%
The share of Irish electricity used by data centres in 2025, reported the Irish Times.
2%
The share of global electricity used by data centres in the same year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of the Energy Institute statistical review.
Latest climate research
- Meltwater from the western Himalayan glaciers will peak at around 2C of warming, before declining at higher warming levels | Environmental Research Letters
- Current coral restoration efforts may be unsuitable for temperate reefs, including those in the Mediterranean | Nature Ecology & Evolution
- People tend to underestimate the level of “broad public support” for climate action | Nature Climate Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief explained – via eight facts – why air conditioning rates in some parts of Europe are relatively low, as the technology emerges as a new front in the global “culture war” over climate action. Analysis for the article illustrated that, in many parts of the world’s fastest-warming continent, air conditioning simply was not needed in the past.
Spotlight
COP31 president speaks to Carbon Brief on electrification
This week, Carbon Brief interviews Murat Kurum, president-designate of the COP31 UN climate talks in November and Turkey’s minister of environment, urbanisation and climate change, on his target to boost global electrification.
Carbon Brief: You recently launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035. Where did this idea come from?
Murat Kurum: The “35 by 35” target is grounded in technical data and based on the IEA [International Energy Agency] and IRENA [International Renewable Energy Agency] analysis of what is needed to keep [the 1.5C Paris Agreement target] within reach. The level was not chosen politically. Rather, it reflects what the science and the energy modelling tell us is required.
CB: Why do you think an electrification target is important right now?
MK: The case for the target is urgent right now. The latest war in the Gulf has made energy diversification – and, in particular, renewable energy transition and electrification – a top global priority, because it is the surest and cleanest way to protect citizens around the world from high and volatile energy prices.
At a time of real fragmentation in international relations, a single, shared target is needed to focus global efforts by aligning governments, businesses and investors behind a common benchmark and to send a clear market signal.
CB: Which countries are supporting this target so far?
MK: The reaction so far has been extremely positive and, while we presented our target at the UN June climate meetings in Bonn, our earlier conversations with parties at both the Petersberg and Copenhagen climate dialogues paved the way for this launch.
For example, the EU, UK, and Canada have welcomed the target, as have the Brazilian COP30 and Ethiopian COP32 presidencies. All have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31.
This support has been reflected in the business community as well, with polling by the We Mean Business Coalition showing that 90% of businesses expect to have largely electrified their operations by 2035 and that 88% expect electrification will make their business more competitive.
CB: How do you hope and expect to see this taken forward at the COP? Could it be in the formal COP outcomes, or part of the second global stocktake?
MK: We are now taking electrification forward as an “action agenda” initiative to bring actors together and drive progress. The action agenda and the [formal COP] negotiations are separate, but complementary, with different processes and thresholds, and it is too early to say what all countries might be able to agree in the negotiations. That is for parties to determine as the year progresses.
We are focused and determined to use COP31 as a moment to spark a global conversation about electrification.
CB: What are the key priorities for reaching the target?
MK: The critical sectors for reaching the target are buildings, transport and industry, which together account for around 45% of global emissions. Financial support for the developing world and investment in grids and infrastructure is also crucial.
The target also builds on COP28’s target to triple renewable energy capacity and seeks to take advantage of the tumbling cost of renewable power and other technologies critical to the energy transition. This is a journey that Turkey itself is taking ambitious steps on, including our plan to reach 120GW [gigawatts] of renewable capacity by 2035.
Watch, read, listen
HEATED: A Financial Times long read asked if Europe – the world’s fastest-warming continent – is “prepared for a world of extreme heat”.
LITIGATED: The Outrage and Optimism podcast spoke to Prof Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham about the latest trends in climate litigation.
‘SHATTERED’: Confidence in fossil-fuel exports via the strait of Hormuz has been “shattered”, wrote IEA chief Fatih Birol for Foreign Policy.
Coming up
- 13-17 July: Meeting of open-ended working group on the Montreal Protocol, Bangkok, Thailand
- 13-24 July: International Seabed Authority Council, Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
Pick of the jobs
- Wellcome Trust, head of policy – climate and health | Salary: £84,640-£105,800. Location: London
- Financial Times, senior reporter, Sustainable Views | Salary: Unknown. Location: London
- North Texas Public Broadcasting, climate, energy and environment reporter | Salary: $70,000-$78,000. Location: Fort Worth, Texas
- Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, head of communications and engagement | Salary: £65,000-£70,000. Location: London
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview
As successive heatwaves hit Europe, air-conditioning (AC) has emerged as a new front in the international “culture war” over climate action.
France, Germany and the UK have experienced record-breaking heat and thousands of heat-related deaths this summer, with June temperatures in many regions passing 40C.
This has drawn attention to the relatively low rates of AC use in these countries – and in Europe as a whole – especially when compared to its widespread adoption in the US.
Legacy newspapers, bloggers and even Elon Musk have all weighed in on “European hostility” to AC, criticising Europe’s “cultural conservatism” and “overbearing governments”.
Right-wing politicians, including National Rally in France and the UK Conservatives, have styled themselves as champions of AC, while opposing efforts to tackle climate change.
Missing from most of these interventions is the fact that human-caused climate change has made once-rare heat far more common, in what is the world’s fastest warming continent.
Carbon Brief analysis for this article shows that, until the 2020s, it was rare for many European cities to see days above 30C, making AC an unnecessary expense.
Here, Carbon Brief explains – via eight facts – why AC rates in some parts of Europe are relatively low, as well as clarifies and contextualises some of the misleading claims circulating about the technology.
- Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past
- AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe
- Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing
- AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited
- Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities
- More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe
- ‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK
- AC is not the only answer to overheating cities
Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past
AC installation rates in northern parts of Europe are very low. The best available estimates suggest that 6% of households in Germany and just 4% in England use AC.
However, these rates are largely explained by the historical climates in these nations.
Unlike the US, much of the housing stock and infrastructure in Europe was built at a time when AC did not exist and was not necessary.
Moreover, nations such as France, Germany and the UK have only started to regularly experience extreme heat in recent decades.
The chart below shows the average number of days per year, in each decade since the 1950s, when maximum temperatures have exceeded 30C in major European cities. Capitals such as London and Paris have seen a significant jump since around 2000.
Prof Jan Rosenow, an energy and climate researcher at the University of Oxford, tells Carbon Brief:
“For most of the 20th century, northern Europe simply didn’t need cooling. Homes in Britain and Germany were built to keep heat in, not out, because winters were cold and summers rarely hot.”
Much of the commentary about the relatively low rates of European AC use focuses on cultural or “ideological” factors. (See: Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing.)
However, Rosenow says people’s views on AC in these countries likely stem from their historically colder climates. He adds:
“Attitudes formed around those facts, not the other way round…There is a cultural element, but it is the product of climate, not of some green ideological project.”
In the past, many in Europe relied on traditional methods to keep buildings cool. Richard Black, head of communications at Climate Analytics, made this point in a post on LinkedIn:
“Once, residents of cities such as Paris could cope with summer heatwaves by opening shutters and windows during the night, and closing them again in the morning to trap the cool air inside…We’ve reached a limit to this sort of adaptation.”
Now, with Europe around 2.5C warmer than pre-industrial levels, climate change is routinely driving record-breaking heatwaves, even in the north of the continent.
This is forcing a reappraisal of societies that were “built for a climate that no longer exists”, as the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) put it in a recent report.
Experts broadly agree that much of Europe will indeed need more AC, particularly in spaces housing the most vulnerable populations, such as care homes, schools and hospitals.
At the same time, they also emphasise broader, “passive” efforts to make cities and homes cooler alongside increased AC use. (See: AC is not the only answer to overheating cities.)
AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe
During periods of extreme heat, articles criticising “European hostility” towards the technology frequently note that “only about 20%” of households in Europe have AC.
Often, this is contrasted with the US, where more than 90% of households have AC installed. (In fact, the US is something of a global outlier, matched only by Japan.)
However, the continent-wide figure for Europe obscures the reality. In southern Europe – where temperatures are and have always been higher – AC is relatively common.
The map below, based on official EU data, shows that southern European nations use far more household energy for “space cooling” than those in the north.
Government figures show that nearly 60% of Italian households have AC. Household-level data in many countries is patchy, but various analyses have placed that figure at 70-80% in Greece and 41% in Spain – with higher penetration in the hotter, southern part of the country.
The same pattern can be seen within France. International coverage has stressed the country’s “cultural resistance to AC”, citing a nationwide figure from 2020 that suggests “only” 25% of French households have AC.
However, polling data from customers of the Hello Watt energy app suggests that there is a distinct north-south divide in French uptake. At least 60% of households in Mediterranean regions of France are equipped with AC, according to these figures.
This can be seen in the map below, with households across northern regions, including Paris, reporting far lower AC installation rates, often below 5%.
Finally, when making such comparisons to Europe, it is worth noting that high rates of AC use reported for the entire US also obscure significant differences between – and within – US states. This, too, aligns with differences in regional climate.
Hotter states in the US south have near-universal AC access. But in Washington, a north-western state with a climate more comparable to that of western Europe, 66% of people have AC in their homes.
Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing
International commentators have written extensively about Europe’s “longstanding resistance to cooling technology”, especially when compared to the US.
Newspaper editorials in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, alongside numerous op-eds and blog posts, have added fuel to this “culture war”. Elon Musk has even promoted an AI-generated message stating that Europeans “should just install AC”.
Often, European attitudes are attributed to “guilt” about AC’s energy demand, “cultural conservatism” or “overbearing governments”. One commentator ascribed divergent attitudes in Europe and the US to “different ideas about physical suffering and sacrifice”.
Meanwhile, right-leaning commentators and climate-sceptic groups have blamed “climate policies, which view AC as an unnecessary luxury”.
In general, these critiques often fail to consider the most obvious explanation, which is that AC adoption is low in northern Europe because the historical climate made AC unnecessary.
Critical articles have instead drawn attention to restrictions on AC use in some European countries, as well as the lack of support for AC in official heatwave guidance.
For France, in particular, polling has indeed highlighted widespread disapproval of AC, both on environmental grounds and due to alleged health impacts. Such messages have also been voiced regularly in French media and by left-leaning and green politicians.
However, across Europe there are plenty of signs that such attitudes are shifting, following successive spells of extreme heat.
Amid the June heatwave, there were reports from Germany, France and the UK of “skyrocketing” AC sales. This surge was even acknowledged by the foreign ministry in China, due to the nation’s role in supplying many of these products.
The shift is taking place in politics as well. Marine Tondelier, leader of the French Green party – which has traditionally opposed AC – recently stated that “there are places where we just can’t do without AC anymore”.
Overall, AC has been on the rise across Europe, with France, Spain and the Netherlands all using more than twice as much energy for AC and other “space cooling” technologies in 2024 as they did in 2015.
AC production in Germany has also risen by at least 75% in recent years and a growing share of German homes are being built with it installed.
Notably, there is little evidence that “climate policies” are blocking Europeans from installing AC. Polling in Germany shows that, while people are concerned about environmental impacts, the high costs of installing and running it are perceived as greater barriers.
Finally, there is an important distinction between individual AC units in people’s homes and installing them in public spaces, such as hospitals, care homes and schools.
While neither is widespread in France, support for the latter can increasingly be found across the political spectrum, from Greens to the far-right National Rally (RN).
AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited
Some people have noted that a wider rollout of AC in Europe could drive up emissions.
As noted in the Financial Times by columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch, there is a logic to this argument, “at least superficially”. He writes:
“AC uses a lot of energy; if the proposed defence against emissions-driven global warming means emitting more, then we have an obvious problem.”
The emissions impact of AC depends heavily on the generation mix of a country’s power sector.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “space cooling” – mostly AC, but this does include some fans – used 2,100 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power globally in 2022.
As such, it was responsible for 1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from electricity use globally. This equates to around 2.7% of total CO2 emissions globally from fossil fuels and industry.
(As well as indirect emissions through power use, AC units can also directly release greenhouse gases – used as AC refrigerants – when they leak or are improperly disposed of. Following the 2016 Kigali Amendment, countries are progressively trying to phase down the use of potent greenhouse gases in AC units.)
In a LinkedIn post, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and regular Carbon Brief contributor, says:
“There is a lot of alarmist messaging about how much electricity AC uses. However, on an annual basis, the demand is not that substantial. Currently, AC uses about 1% of electricity in the EU and catching up to adoption rates in the US would double this.”
According to the IEA estimates from 2018, “if left unchecked, energy demand from AC will more than triple by 2050”, reaching 6,200TWh of power.
By mid-century, households would contribute the most to the increase (70%), with at least two-thirds of the world’s households potentially having AC, according to the Paris-based agency.
Decarbonising electricity grids and energy-efficiency improvements can reduce AC emissions and their impact on climate.
For instance, in countries with a low-carbon electricity mix – such as France, where nuclear energy accounts for 67% of its electricity generation – expanding AC would have a more limited climate impact than in other countries.
In countries such as India, there could be a more significant increase in emissions as AC is adopted, due to the role coal plays in the country’s energy mix, especially during the night. Demand is growing fast – following low access historically – and many AC units are inefficient, with high electricity use.
According to a new working paper from the India Energy and Climate Center (IECC) at the University of California, Berkeley, “room AC” – portable plug-in units, as opposed to those permanently installed in buildings – already accounts for nearly one-quarter of India’s peak electricity demand (60-70GW) – and this is before the majority of Indian households have bought their first AC unit.
Dr Nikit Abhyankar, co-faculty director of the IECC, tells Carbon Brief that, as AC use is expanded across the world, it should be paired with solar and battery storage, where the “economics have completely shifted” in the last few years. This will help to cut both energy bills and emissions.
According to the IEA, accelerating energy efficiency improvements could deliver more than one-third of all CO2 emission reductions between now and 2030.
The global energy demand needed to run ACs alone in 2050 could be reduced by 1,300GW – the equivalent of all of China and India’s coal plants – through energy efficiency measures, it estimates.
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, a climate adaptation researcher at King’s College London, tells Carbon Brief that, as the use of AC expands, there is a conversation to be had about where and “what type of technology [is used] and who gets access” to it.
A final point is that many AC units are air-to-air heat pumps, which can efficiently heat homes, as well as keeping them cool. As such, wider AC adoption could boost the adoption of electrified heat, helping to cut emissions from gas boilers.
Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities
Some critics of AC mention its electricity demands and associated CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, which contribute to raising the temperature of the entire planet. (See: AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited.)
But AC also has a localised impact. It works by removing heat from indoor air and pushing it outdoors, raising temperatures on the street and exacerbating the “urban heat island” effect.
Left-leaning French politicians are among those citing this as an argument against AC, particularly in cities. Indeed, Emmanuel Grégoire, the Socialist mayor of Paris, appeared to be making this point in an interview with Le Monde, during the June heatwave:
“[AC] can be useful for cooling collective spaces and protecting the most vulnerable populations, but individual AC is a scourge – it makes the problem worse by heating the city even more.”
One study concludes that, in a city such as Phoenix, Arizona, where the technology is widespread, AC use during a heatwave can raise night-time temperatures by 1-1.5C.
Another models a nine-day heatwave in Paris – in a future with “massive” AC use – and finds an increase in external temperature of more than 2C, due to heat emitted by the units.
Given this, some scientists argue that AC can be a form of climate “maladaptation” – referring to actions that backfire and make people more vulnerable to global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted this issue, concluding:
“AC may constitute a maladaptation because of its high demands on energy and associated heat emissions, especially in high-density cities.”
Compared to the US, more people in Europe live in dense, urban areas. According to Dr Vincent Viguié, a climate change economist at École des Ponts ParisTech, this could leave Europeans more exposed to heat from AC units. He tells Carbon Brief:
“If you live in a neighbourhood that is not dense, like in a suburban neighbourhood or in the countryside, you don’t care about this…So, once again, there is a key difference between US and European cities.”
Viguié is among the experts arguing that other climate-adaptation measures should be considered alongside AC, to keep entire cities cool – not just individual homes. He says:
“It’s not to say that the heat released by AC by itself is a reason to forbid AC…It’s just that not taking that into account may lead to bad decisions.”
More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe
Heatwaves can be deadly, especially for older or vulnerable members of society.
According to climate scientists at World Weather Attribution, “heatwaves cause more deaths in Europe than all other natural hazards combined”.
The heatwave in June 2026 is estimated to have killed more than 20,000 people in Europe. In France – which has seen some of the hottest temperatures – the heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief.
AC does help to protect people from the effects of extreme heat. A 2021 study found that globally, AC averted an estimated 190,000 heat-related deaths annually during 2019-21.
With its much higher penetration of AC, the US has fewer deaths due to extreme heat than Europe.
Heat kills around 11 people out of every 100,000 in Europe, compared to around two people in the US, according to analysis by data scientist Dr Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data.
Several publications have pointed out that “Europe’s heatwaves are deadlier than American gun violence”. While this is technically accurate in absolute terms, Ritchie says the comparison is “a bit silly” for a number of reasons, not least because on a per-capita basis, US gun deaths are higher.
However, experts suggest that AC is only one part of a wider effort to protect people from extreme heat.
A 2020 study looking at heat-related mortality in Canada, Japan, Spain and the US, found that excess deaths due to heat decreased between 1972 and 2009.
For example, the proportion of deaths due to extreme heat fell from 1.7% to 0.5% over the period in the US and 3.5% to 2.8% in Spain.
However, an increase in AC only explained 16.7% of the drop in the US and 14.3% in Spain.
The research concludes that “other factors have played an equal or more important role in increasing the resilience of populations”. This is supported by research that shows changes to cities, such as planting more trees, as well as behavioural shifts and public-health measures, can all protect people from dangerous heat.
Additionally, across Europe there is already a range of policies and measures in place to protect the most vulnerable from heatwaves. Many of these were brought in following the unprecedented summer of 2003, when 70,000 died from extreme heat.
These policies were highlighted by French environment minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, in response to the far-right National Rally (RN) party’s AC proposals:
“The incompetent RN has just found out that nursing homes need air-conditioned rooms. Thank you, but it’s actually been mandatory since 2004.”
Another study found that measures that have already been rolled out in France would cut the projected death toll of a 2003-like heatwave by more than 75%. This is in part due to the expansion of AC in places such as nursing homes, but also other approaches, such as heat action plans.
For example, France has a multi-tiered action plan, which includes local governments ensuring access to cooled spaces and water, keeping a list of vulnerable individuals for targeted interventions, as well as national information campaigns.
According to the UN’s office for disaster risk reduction, this French plan has led to a “significant reduction in heat-related mortality”.
While action plans have proved successful in a number of nations, less than half of European countries have such a plan in place.
‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK
In the UK, Conservative politicians and right-leaning media have tried to pit the adoption of AC against net-zero policy.
Writing in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, columnist Matthew Lynn claimed falsely:
“Strict net-zero rules now mean that aircon is effectively banned in the UK.”
(Further down the article, he concedes: “AC is not strictly speaking banned in new-build homes in the UK. But tough environmental rules mean that it is very hard, and expensive, to install in practice.”)
The same narrative has been used in articles by GB News, the Sun and others. A separate article in the Daily Telegraph’s “money” section goes further, claiming that AC had been “torn from homes under net-zero clampdown”.
A blog post from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government rebuts these claims, stating:
“There has been media coverage this week suggesting that AC is banned in homes. This is incorrect.”
For the UK, while it is true that fewer than 5% of homes currently have AC, this is largely due to the fact that it was not hot enough in the past to warrant the expense. Historically, the focus has therefore been on keeping buildings warm, rather than cool.
Extreme heat has previously been rare in the country, so homes were built with insulation and other measures to keep heat in during the “dank winters”. (See: Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past.)
Current regulations do not ban the installation of AC outright. However – as the government’s blog post notes – there is no blanket rule, meaning there are some localised differences.
Certain areas – or certain kinds of properties – may be subject to additional complications for installing AC.
In a 2025 video on Instagram, shadow secretary of state for energy security and net-zero Claire Coutinho referenced the London plan, for example, which is a framework for development in the capital launched in 2021. She said:
“[London mayor] Sadiq Khan says no. The London plan says we shouldn’t have air con because it uses too much energy. But this is mad! This is a poverty mindset that we need to get away from.”
The London Plan does not stop homes from having AC. It simply says that, for new buildings, passive design measures should be prioritised, such as the orientation of the building, the window design and incorporation of measures such as external shading and trees.
A recent response from the mayor added further measures, such as the need to “minimise the necessity for the operation of mechanical measures including AC, which would further add to the heat island effect within urban areas and add operational cost to residents”.
Elsewhere, new-build homes across England must meet the requirements of “part O” of the 2022 building regulation updates. This includes addressing overheating in buildings through energy-efficient design and prioritising passive cooling, with AC as a last resort.
For existing buildings, most AC units fall under “permitted development rights”, meaning no planning application is required to install them.
Additionally, regulations were relaxed in 2025 to make it easier to install an air-to-air heat pump – which can both heat and cool air – without planning permission.
This means that, far from blocking the expansion of AC, net-zero policy has made it easier to install specific cooling systems.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Andrew Sissons, director of sustainable future at Nesta, says the government must now implement its announced £2,500 subsidy for air-to-air heat pumps “as quickly as possible”, to further ensure that the technology can be rolled out efficiently. He adds:
“[The government] should also continue to expand permitted development rights for air-to-air heat pumps, with a particular focus on flats and homes in denser areas. As long as heat pumps meet the MCS [Microgeneration Certification Scheme] noise test, there are few reasons to limit their use via the planning system.”
Some properties, such as large homes, listed buildings or those in conservation areas, may still require planning permission to install an air-to-air heat pump or other AC. Sissons notes that this can add cost and delay to installation.
While it cannot be said that AC has been blocked or banned due to net-zero, neither has it been prioritised.
This may shift as temperatures continue to rise. UK government advisors at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) suggest that 22% of the UK’s housing stock will likely need active cooling, such as AC, to cope with 2C of global warming.
The CCC’s recent adaptation report also calls for all new homes to be built using low-cost, passive cooling measures, alongside more AC.
Active cooling such as AC is more likely to be needed for retrofitting existing homes, the report adds.
AC is not the only answer to overheating cities
AC has become increasingly politicised in Europe, as demonstrated by France’s RN party announcing its “grand plan for AC” in all public buildings.
As noted by Dutch MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, this “far-right” embrace of AC is coming from the same people who for years have “delayed emissions reductions”.
In response, left-leaning policymakers in Europe have frequently downplayed the role of AC, prioritising programmes of urban greening and retrofitting older buildings.
Such approaches for dealing with extreme heat have already proved successful. Therefore, many experts argue that these methods, alongside AC, will be essential to prepare for a hotter world.
According to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, adaptive infrastructure, such as urban forests and green roofs, can reduce energy use because of cooling, with co-benefits for climate, air quality, physical and mental health.
While retrofitting older buildings for heat as well as insulating them from the cold might prove challenging, urban greening and an active shade policy – one that determines how much of every street is exposed to direct sunlight – are simple measures cities can adopt.
Some experts have also warned about the high cost of running AC, expressing concerns that excessive reliance on the technology could increase energy poverty.
In a Carbon Brief guest post published in 2025, researchers at the Basque Centre for Climate Change found that framing AC as the “default solution” can miss the opportunity to design “more inclusive, human-centred responses” to rising temperatures.
William Lewis, a PhD candidate and one of the guest post’s authors, tells Carbon Brief it is not a case of “one or the other”, when considering AC and other options:
“We have this opportunity in European countries to choose a slightly different path [from the US], which isn’t AC in every single home.”
King’s College London’s Pillai says that, by centring the debate on AC, the far-right response to the heatwaves in Europe has “completely neglected the science of how you cool human beings”.
There are many solutions, he adds, that are already widely used across hot developing countries, such as ceiling fans, windows that open and cross-ventilation, as well as strategies to reduce cumulative hours of heat exposure.
Pillai tells Carbon Brief that, while places reaching 42C and higher “definitely need to think about AC very seriously”, places in the “low to mid 30Cs” could rely on these alternatives.
Behavioural change, he adds, is the “least glamorous part” of heat policy, but “pulls most of the weight” of protecting people. These include a wide range of actions and responses – from reducing heat exposure, to wearing lighter clothing and drinking more water and fluids.
There are also workplace protections. Pillai tells Carbon Brief that these could include legislation on mandatory work breaks, cooling and shade requirements at workplaces, as well as health insurance that covers heat stress days that have been lost by heat-exposed workers.
The post Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate
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