At a plenary session held today, the European Parliament declared climate emergency and called upon EU decision makers to take action accordingly, but did little to advance real change.
It restated its previous call for raising the EU’s 2030 climate target to 55% emissions cuts in early 2020, falling short of supporting a higher target of 65%, which would bring the EU more in line with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.
Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe said:
“Declaring an emergency is important, but any such statement needs to be followed by emergency action. To act at the scale of the climate emergency, the Parliament needs to push for real, immediate action. The EU needs to increase the climate target to at least 65% emission cuts, and adopt policies and measures that can reduce emissions immediately. People will continue to strike and go to the courts until the climate crisis is taken with more urgency and seriousness.”
ENDS
Contact
Ania Drazkiewicz, CAN Europe Head of Communications, ania@caneurope.org, +32 494 525 738
CAN Europe COP25 media advisory here
Photo story ‘Faces of the Climate Fight” portaying climate activists here
Print quality images can be downloaded from here
Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change. With over 160 member organisations from 35 European countries, representing over 1.700 NGOs and more than 47 million citizens, CAN Europe promotes sustainable climate, energy and development policies throughout Europe.