BRUSSELS — Postponing the start of the EU’s new carbon levy for building and road transport emissions by one year to 2028 is going to cost European governments lots of money, according to a top Danish official. Denmark, for instance, is estimated to lose half a billion euros in future revenues from the delay of the new carbon market (known as ETS2), said Christian Stenberg, deputy permanent secretary of state at the Danish climate ministry, at POLITICO’s Sustainable Future Summit. “The delay will mean that we will lack that tool for one year,” he told a panel discussion. “It will cost us quite a bit of revenue that we could have gotten,” he added. “About €0.5 billion.” “For the Danish economy [it] is not little.” To bring more skeptical EU countries on board, like Poland, Italy and Romania, and reach a deal on the EU’s new climate target for 2040, environment ministers pushed the European Commission to agree to postpone the new carbon pricing mechanism by one year. Stenberg explained that, as the talks over the 2040 climate target stretched overnight, he “had to go back to my finance ministry in the middle of the night and say the compromise will cost us this in revenue.” But the ETS2, which has raised concerns in a majority of EU governments that it will increase energy bills, is “the most cost effective way of reaching our targets within transportation and buildings,” Stenberg argued. “And cost effectiveness, at the end of the day, is to the benefit of the economy.” Chiara Martinelli, director of the NGO Climate Action Network Europe, also said on the panel that the delay of the new carbon market is “problematic,” and called on the EU to ensure that social measures to support people in the green transition come with the ETS2.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Ein Kanzler im Kurztrip auf Langstrecke für den Klimaschutz. Friedrich Merz fliegt zur Klimakonferenz nach Belém in Brasilien und bleibt dort nur wenige Stunden. Mit an Bord: eine Agenda zwischen Industriepolitik, Technologieoffenheit und der Frage, ob Deutschland beim Klima überhaupt noch als Vorbild gilt. Gordon Repinski begleitet den Kanzler und ordnet die vorher Reise ein. Zurück in Berlin: Da tagt vorher der Kanzlerreise der Stahlgipfel im Kanzleramt. Tom Schmidtgen vom POLITICO-Newsletter Industrie und Handel erklärt, woran die Stahlbranche wirklich krankt, warum Zölle gegen Billigimporte drohen und weshalb selbst der Industriestrompreis nicht hilft. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Ilse Aigner, Präsidentin des Bayerischen Landtags, über den Verdacht, dass die AfD mit parlamentarischen Anfragen sensible Daten zur kritischen Infrastruktur abgreift. Sie fordert strengere Regeln und ein entschiedenes Vorgehen gegen mögliche Spionage. Zum Schluss nimmt euch Gordon mit zum Launch-Event des Newsletters Industrie und Handel. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s environment ministers struck a deal watering down a proposed 2040 target for cutting planet-warming emissions and set a new 2035 climate plan. Following marathon negotiations all day Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, ministers unanimously approved the bloc’s long-overdue climate plan, rescuing the EU from the international embarrassment of showing up empty handed this month’s COP30 summit. The plan, which is a requirement under the Paris Agreement, sets a new goal to slash EU emissions between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent below 1990 levels until 2035. That plan is not legally binding but sets the direction of EU climate policy for the coming five years. The range is similar to an informal statement that the EU presented at a climate summit in New York in September. Ministers also adopted a legally-binding target for cutting emissions in the EU by 85 percent by 2040. The deal mandates that another 5 percent reduction be achieved by outsourcing pollution cuts abroad through the purchase of international carbon credits. On top of that, governments would be allowed to use credits to outsource another 5 percentage points of their national emissions reduction goals. Ministers also backed a wide-ranging review clause that allows the EU to adjust its 2040 target in the future if climate policy proves to have negative impacts on the EU’s economy. The deal also foresees a one-year delay to the implementation of the EU’s new carbon market for heating and car emissions, which is set to start in 2027. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland did not support the 2040 deal, while Bulgaria and Belgium abstained. The rest of the EU27 countries backed it. Lawmakers in the European Parliament now have to agree on their own position on the 2040 climate target and negotiate with the Council of the EU before the target becomes law. 

BRUSSELS — European governments struck a provisional deal to agree on a significantly weakened 2040 climate target in the early hours of Wednesday. The European Union’s 27 environment ministers met Tuesday to decide on the bloc’s new emissions-cutting goals for 2035 and 2040, but talks stalled until well after midnight. After 18 hours of negotiations, a majority of 27 countries gave preliminary approval to what one diplomat described as a “take it or leave it” text on the 2040 target. Ministers will reconvene from 7:45 a.m. to reach a formal agreement. “We believe we have the basis for a political deal. We expect to formally conclude a deal when we resume in a few hours,” said a spokesperson for Denmark, which is chairing the discussions. The draft agreement on 2040, seen by POLITICO, will hollow out the European Commission’s proposal and demand the postponement of a core climate law. The EU executive had proposed a 90 percent cut in emissions by 2040 compared to 1990, while allowing countries to outsource 3 percentage points to other nations — meaning the bloc would commit to achieving at least 87 percent through domestic climate efforts. While the headline target stands, the draft deal only commits the EU to an 85 percent domestic emissions cut, with the option of going even below this figure. The EU would collectively outsource up to 5 percentage points by purchasing so-called carbon credits from other countries — with the draft text scrapping language that referred to such offsets only as a “possible” option and explicitly setting out a “domestic reduction … by 85 percent.” On top of that, the new text allows countries to outsource another 5 percentage points of their national targets. The draft agreement also seeks changes to existing green legislation. Responding to a demand from Italy, countries will demand that “zero- and low-carbon fuels” continue playing a role in “road transport,” a reference to weakening the bloc’s 2035 combustion-engine phaseout. To appease Poland, the draft deal also calls on the Commission to postpone the introduction of a new carbon tax on transport and heating fuels — key to meeting the bloc’s existing 2030 climate target — by one year. The text also suggests heavy industry be given free pollution permits under the bloc’s carbon market for longer than planned. A deal on the 2035 target, which is not legally binding but mandated by the Paris Agreement, remains uncertain. A second draft text, also seen by POLITICO, sets this goal between 66.25 and 72.5 percent, echoing an earlier informal statement. Yet this goal requires unanimous approval, and three diplomats said Hungary was as yet unable to agree. Louise Guillot contributed reporting.

Brussels wants to kill off the combustion engine. Instead, it’s supercharging Europe’s populists. Right-wing parties are running hard against the EU’s law that bans the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars from 2035. It’s happening in the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, France, Poland and elsewhere. In response, centrist parties with a more established voice in Brussels are turning against the law to avoid losing traction to their far-right rivals. It’s far from the only issue for populist parties — most of which base a large part of their appeal on battling immigration — but the EU’s green car effort is one that speaks to many voters angry about Brussels threatening to take away their beloved combustion engine cars. In Prague, the far-right Motorist for Themselves party denounced “green fanatics” and made a breakthrough in the national election last month with almost 7 percent of the vote.   The vote-winner populist ANO party on Monday struck a coalition agreement with the Motorists and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy. That means the Czech Republic, which has one of the EU’s largest car industries as a percentage of the economy, will continue being one of the leading opponents of the 2035 measure, as the outgoing centrist government was also skeptical of the law. In Poland, Piotr Müller, a member of the European Parliament with the main opposition group, the nationalist Law and Justice party, said: “No one should be forced to change their car just because that’s what Brussels has decided.” “Stop the climate fanatics!” screams a poster from Poland’s fast-rising far-right Confederation party. Meanwhile, a party policy paper states, “We are dealing with an anti-car frenzy that has taken hold of Eurocrats, and the war against the automotive industry and drivers is raging on many fronts.” In Italy, League leader and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini denounced the 2035 measure as “ideological fundamentalism” and called it economic suicide that will hand over the bloc’s car industry to Chinese rivals. The Italian government is pressing hard for opt-outs from the 2035 biofuels law.  Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party campaigns strongly against 2035, but in the country with the continent’s largest car sector, the issue is also splitting the ruling coalition led by the conservative Christian Democrats in alliance with the center-left Social Democrats.  In France, Jordan Bardella, one of the leaders of the National Rally party, wants to repeal 2035. POLITICAL TARGET The populists have hit on a pain point for the EU. Although the bloc wants to slash greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 90 percent by 2050, that means upending one of the continent’s most powerful — and lucrative — industries and imposing a new technology on a reluctant public.  The combustion engine ban was the most unpopular policy among consumers, even as they expressed broader support for climate action, according to a survey of 15,000 people in Germany, France and Poland that focused on climate policy attitudes in the runup to the 2024 European election.  The far-right is capitalizing on this skepticism, “turning it into political gains or framing climate policies altogether as overly burdensome toward businesses, farmers or ordinary citizens,” said Jannik Jansen, a senior policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, who helped conduct the study.   In France, Jordan Bardella, one of the leaders of the National Rally party, wants to repeal 2035. | Thomas Samson/Getty Images The automotive sector is facing a triple whammy of crises: tariffs from Donald Trump, threats from tech-savvy Chinese rivals and a car market that failed to bounce back after the pandemic.  To hear some parts of the industry tell it — especially those carmakers lagging on switching to electric vehicles — the solution is to back off the EU’s climate agenda and severely weaken the 2035 ban, if not overturn it entirely.  PUSHING BRUSSELS TO THE RIGHT They’re gaining political supporters as this Commission shifts its priorities from leading on climate to making Europe strategically autonomous and regaining its competitive edge.   Germany’s Christian Democrats campaigned in February’s federal election on overturning the 2035 ban — and were rewarded at the ballot box, as was their sister party, the European People’s Party, which won the most seats in last year’s European Parliament.  Rising skepticism from voters at home is giving center-right politicians license to push back against green efforts in Brussels. Europe’s mainstream parties “have become significantly more hesitant or reluctant to support ambitious climate policies,” said Jansen. Once one of the staunchest supporters of the 2035 law, France has backed off its earlier full-throated endorsement of the legislation. Now it wants assurances that the shift to battery-powered cars won’t cost jobs. President Emmanuel Macron is hanging on to power by the thinnest of threads, and the National Rally of Bardella and Marine Le Pen is way out in front in opinion polls. Paris “wishes to pursue the electrification of vehicles … as long as they are accompanied by very clear measures encouraging European preference that support industrial jobs in Europe,” the government said on Oct. 23. NATIONAL IMPACTS In Germany, the ruling coalition squabbled over the issue before the Social Democrats gave way and modified their position. They will now accept non-EV ways of meeting the 2035 law by using range extenders — small combustion engines that give electric cars more range — or plug-in hybrids, so long as green steel or e-fuels are used to offset the emissions.   But that’s not enough for the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, with premier Markus Söder refusing to budge on the issue.  “The EU’s 2035 ban endangers hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Söder said, warning of the looming “collapse” of Germany’s car industry. “Söder’s current stance fits neatly into his broader, opportunistic strategy of adopting far-right populist talking points and instrumentalizing ‘culture-war’ narratives, particularly against the Greens and what he frames as regulatory overreach,” said Jansen.   Other countries are getting in line. Poland’s centrist government is content to follow in Germany’s wake. Germany’s Christian Democrats campaigned in February’s federal election on overturning the 2035 ban. | Andreas Arnold/Getty Images “We’re happy that Germany is speaking with a Polish voice,” said Andrzej Halicki, a member of the European Parliament from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party. The Commission is responding to the pushback, with President Ursula von der Leyen set to put forward a proposal by the end of the year to reform the 2035 legislation. And the executive is clear about where it lays the blame for a slower-than-anticipated transition to electric vehicles. “The main reason Europe isn’t catching up is because the far-right discredited EVs to the middle class,” an official said. This article has been updated.

BRUSSELS — Voting for a weaker climate target means weakening the EU’s economy, the European Commission’s second-in-command warned ministers ahead of a key summit. Teresa Ribera, the EU executive’s vice president in charge of the green transition, told environment ministers to support an ambitious emissions-cutting goal on Tuesday. “Delaying climate action or lowering our ambition below the required trajectory is an invitation to waste money and miss investment opportunities. It is a sign of weakness and incoherence — with enormous economic and human costs,” she said in a statement. “I call on the environment ministers who will gather tomorrow … to back true European competitiveness: socially responsible and environmentally consistent.” On Tuesday, the 27 environment ministers gather in Brussels to hammer out a deal on the bloc’s new climate target for 2040, but on the eve of their meeting there is no certainty that they can reach an agreement. The Commission wants the bloc to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent below 1990 levels until 2040. To get enough governments onboard, the EU executive suggested outsourcing up to 3 percentage points of this target — allowing the bloc to pay other countries to cut pollution on its behalf by purchasing so-called carbon credits. This change wasn’t enough to convince a sufficient number of governments, however, and ministers will discuss on Tuesday whether to increase the share of carbon credits. Offshoring more emissions cuts would allow EU industry and households to reduce pollution at a slower pace, but the bloc’s scientific advisors have warned this would divert cash away from much-needed investments in domestic climate efforts. Ministers will also discuss introducing clauses asking the Commission to revise the target downward if economic conditions worsen or certain sub-targets cannot be met. Both higher credit use and wide-ranging revision clauses would open the door to a weaker goal, even ministers leave the headline figure of 90 percent untouched on Tuesday.

Governments are falling far short of the promises they made to cut plant-warming pollution under the Paris climate agreement 10 years ago, the United Nations said in a report Tuesday. Only a minority of countries have so far updated their commitments to tackling what the countries signing the pact called in 2015 “the urgent threat of climate change.” And the plans they submitted to date would cut global greenhouse gas pollution only modestly compared with levels they had pledged half a decade ago. The lapse comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has pressured nations against measures to curb the use of fossil fuels, whose greenhouse gas emissions are increasing the dangers of a warming planet — and as rising energy prices have prompted European leaders to recommit to using energy sources such as natural gas. Only 64 nations out of 195 parties to the Paris Agreement submitted updated domestic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as required under the 2015 pact, the U.N. noted in its report of those commitments. And one of the most aggressive pledges submitted by any nation is effectively dead: then-President Joe Biden’s pledge last year that the United States — the world’s No. 2 climate polluter behind China — will slash its greenhouse gas output by at least 61 percent from 2005 levels by 2035. Trump has disowned that goal and instead recommitted the country to producing and exporting more fossil fuels, while pressuring allies to buy more U.S. oil and natural gas. Most G20 countries have not formally filed their plans with the U.N. Apart from the United States, only Australia, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Russia and the U.K. have done so. And based on those that have been submitted, the U.N. report hinted at the disappointing targets for emissions cuts. “It is not possible to draw wide-ranging global-level conclusions or inferences from this limited data set,” the report said. Governments are expected to submit their plans at the COP30 U.N. climate talks next month in Brazil. Commitments were originally due in February, but the process was delayed after the reelection of Trump, who in his first administration had removed the United States from the Paris agreement and who did so again in January. “This climate change, it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said during his U.N. General Assembly speech in September. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success.” The national climate policies that countries have submitted so far would push global greenhouse gas emissions 6 percent lower in 2035 than the levels than nations’ previous plans, submitted five years ago, had called for reaching by 2030, the U.N. assessment showed. But even that incomplete accounting may be optimistic, since it includes Biden’s pledge that Trump has rejected. Taken together, the policies that 64 nations floated would ensure their emissions peak before 2030 “with strong emissions reductions thereafter until 2035,” the report said. The plans projected those nations’ combined emissions would fall 17 percent compared with 2019 levels in 2035. In totality, however, those marks mean countries are far behind the Paris goal of keeping temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius of warming since the preindustrial era, a target that scientists have called essential for lessening global catastrophe. The Paris pacts’ stronger alternative goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is in even greater peril. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found hitting the 2-degree mark requires global emissions to plummet 35 percent from 2019 levels by 2035. It would require a 60-percent drop to remain below 1.5 degrees, the U.N. report noted. “Parties are bending their combined emission curve further downwards, but still not quickly enough,” the report said of the plans. The forthcoming submissions will likely improve the bleak forecast the U.N. outlined in its report, which covered plans from nations comprising 30 percent of global greenhouse emissions. The analysis did not factor in China and Turkey, major polluters that have disclosed their overall targets but have not officially filed their plans. It also did not include the European Union, which is still negotiating its emissions strategy. Many analysts view as underwhelming China’s overall goal of lowering emissions up to 10 percent from their peak by 2035, given the country has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. Meanwhile, the EU’s 27 countries have struggled to agree on new climate targets as they weigh economic the strain placed on their heavy industries. In lieu of a new climate target, the EU sent the U.N. a “statement of intent” saying it would reduce emissions by up to 72.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2035. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the limited pool of updated plans. An ongoing but incomplete U.N. analysis of plans that nations announced during the General Assembly in September but have not yet finalized could reflect a 10-percent global emissions decline by 2035, Stiell said in a statement. “Countries are making progress, and laying out clear stepping stones towards net-zero emissions,” he said. “We also know that change is not linear and that some countries have a history of overdelivering.”

BRUSSELS — The EU is considering allowing its heavy industry to pollute for longer under a new draft proposal aimed at breaking the deadlock on the bloc’s 2040 goal for cutting planet-warming emissions. Under pressure to strike a deal before the COP30 climate summit starting Nov. 10 in Brazil, Denmark, which is steering the talks among EU countries, is opening the door to slowing the EU’s climate efforts. The intention is to win support from the majority of countries to back the target of an 90 percent emissions cut by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. The text, obtained by POLITICO, proposes that the EU assess progress toward achieving the new 2040 climate goal every two years, taking into account “scientific evidence, technological advances and evolving challenges to and opportunities for the EU’s global competitiveness.” The European Commission could then suggest legislative changes, the document adds, meaning Brussels could adjust — and potentially weaken — its target in future. The suggestion comes after EU leaders discussed competitiveness and climate policy at a summit last week and pitched ideas to unlock the stalemate in the negotiations. A number of leaders called on the EU to set pragmatic climate goals and introduce more flexibilities to reach them, something that is now reflected in the new compromise document. But allowing the EU to decelerate its climate efforts could see it miss the 2040 goal, or force it to rely on other instruments to reach it, such as outsourcing more emissions cuts to poorer countries. OFFERING FLEXIBILITIES The Danish presidency proposes to introduce measures to avoid penalizing one sector (such as heavily polluting industries) if other sectors (e.g. forestry, which contributes to sequestering carbon in forests) can’t meet their emissions reduction or absorption targets. The proposal states that “possible shortfalls in one sector would not be at the expense of other economic sectors, notably industrial sectors under the EU [Emissions Trading System].” The document does not propose changing the headline 90 percent emissions cut target as proposed by the Commission in July. But it does raise the possibility of changing how much international carbon offsets — an instrument that allows the EU to outsource emissions cuts abroad — should contribute to achieving the target. The Commission proposed capping their use at 3 percent starting in 2036, but member countries including France and Poland have suggested 5 percent or 10 percent. It’s expected to be a key topic in negotiations this week and next, according to one EU diplomat. The document also states that the bloc’s climate goals should not be pursued at the expense of the EU’s military priorities. When designing new climate legislation, the Commission should take into account “the need to ensure the Union’s and its Member States’ capacity to rapidly increase and strengthen their defensive capacity by addressing possible burdens while maintaining incentives for industrial decarbonisation,” the document reads. The compromise text will now be discussed by EU country envoys on Wednesday and Friday with the aim of allowing environment ministers to strike a deal Nov. 4.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music The EU wants to lend €140 billion in cash from frozen Russian funds to Ukraine; Belgium is afraid it will be the one on the hook for paying it back. That’s just one of the tough topics EU leaders discussed as they gathered in Brussels at a meeting devoted to fighting the external threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin — and the internal threat from the far right.  POLITICO’s Gregorio Sorgi breaks down why lending Russian frozen assets is so tricky, while host Sarah Wheaton catches up with colleagues Zia Weise, Gabriel Gavin, Nick Vinocur and Tim Ross on the ground at the European Council summit to get a handle on how debates over climate, sanctions and deregulation played out. 

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s national leaders spent a summit venting their frustration about the bloc’s green transition — and ultimately agreed on language that didn’t demand specific changes to climate legislation. Thursday’s debate centered on how to align the EU’s climate goals with economic priorities, and was meant to resolve a deadlock over the bloc’s new emissions-cutting target for 2040. Many leaders raised national pet issues during the discussion, seven diplomats briefed on the talks said. But they refrained from insisting their specific concerns be addressed in the final summit text — which would have made it impossible to reach a consensus agreement. The eventual conclusions were agreed unchanged from the draft text prepared by diplomats this week — though few countries were entirely satisfied with the outcome. “Classic balance, everyone equally unhappy,” one diplomat said. Members of several governments were left wondering what difference the agreement would make for the 2040 climate target. Ministers had postponed their vote on the new goal in September, after some of the EU’s largest countries refused to approve the law without their leaders having a say. But the text agreed Thursday is deliberately vague, and stops short of endorsing the 2040 goal. That target, as proposed by the European Commission, would reduce the EU’s planet-warming emissions by up to 90 percent below 1990 levels. Ministers are due to reconvene and cast a vote on Nov. 4 — “groundhog day,” a second diplomat said. A third EU diplomat said they did “not see how the cards are any different” than in September, when ministers first tried to vote on the target. Leaders may just have “delayed the crisis” to Nov. 4, the diplomat added. Yet a fourth and fifth diplomat said they felt the discussion had sufficiently reassured key countries, particularly France and Germany, to enable them to support the target in the upcoming vote. The leaders’ agreement sets out “the enabling conditions” to achieve the climate target, the fourth diplomat said, with details to be worked out ahead of the Nov. 4 meeting. But the devil may be in those very details. After leaders approved the text, some diplomats interpreted a passage on the bloc’s new carbon tax on transport and heating fuels as opening the door to delaying its implementation. Other diplomats said that was not how they read the text. Still, many diplomats expressed relief that the debate had gone smoothly amid concerns that some leaders wanted to use the discussion to demand the EU weaken certain climate laws. Earlier in the week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had issued a letter offering concessions to leaders, including revisions of some green laws and measures to limit the new carbon price. This letter, a seventh diplomat said, “was a game changer” and a decisive factor allowing leaders to reach Thursday’s agreement. Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.