Does the Effort Sharing Regulation require sufficient emission reductions to meet the EU 2030 target?

This paper analyses the legislative proposal of the European Commission and the negotiating positions of the Council and the Parliament related to the EU Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR). The ESR sets the framework for the reduction of EU-28 greenhouse gas emissions not covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) in the 2021–2030 period. The ambition of the ESR, as agreed by the EU head of states, is to ensure that the EU-28 emissions in the ESR sector in 2030 will be 30 % below 2005 levels; this is also the ESR sector’s contribution to the overall EU-wide emission reduction target of at least 40 % below 1990 levels as pledged under the UNFCCC.

The proposals by the Council and the Commission would risk missing the 30 % reduction target by 4.5 percentage points. The ESR proposal by the European Parliament is found to close the gap between EU-28 ESR emissions expected in 2030 and the 2030 ESR target by over two thirds, compared to the Commission/Council proposals. This corresponds with raising additional EU-28 emission reduction efforts during the 2021-2030 period from 0.5 % (Commission/Council) to 2.5 % (European Parliament), compared to the Reference Scenario established by the European Commission.