It is by no means certain that the European Union will achieve its ambitious climate and energy targets for 2030 with the current measures, warns the European Court of Auditors in a new report. Moreover, the foundations of the member states’ climate plans are not transparent, so it’s unclear whether they are feasible.

The Auditors say there is little evidence that the European Union has already taken sufficient action to meet the 2030 energy and climate goals. They wonder whether the EU is sufficiently armed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% (compared to 1990) by the decade’s end.

Financial transparency

The EU would probably never have met its 2020 climate goals without the 2009 financial crisis and the corona pandemic, which put a major brake on energy consumption. The problem is that the European Commission has never calculated how these ‘external factors’ contributed to achieving the targets. It also remains unclear how many countries have invested in the climate transition themselves and how much the private sector has contributed.

According to the Court, it is unclear how much the climate efforts have cost the EU, the national budgets, and the private sector. Belgium and five other member states had to buy CO2 emission rights and renewable energy shares elsewhere to achieve their targets. The Court, therefore, pleads for more financial transparency.

‘Particularly worrying’

“We found little evidence so far that the ambitious EU 2030 targets will be translated into sufficient action,” the Court says. “There is no evidence that sufficient funding will be available to meet the 2030 targets.” The Court considers the situation “particularly worrying”.

The EU will provide no more than 100 billion euros of the required 1 trillion per year in the coming years; the rest must come from the member states and, in particular, the business community.

The report comes at a time when resistance to the European ‘Green Deal’ is increasing, just before member states must submit their national climate plan at the end of this week. Belgium, its regional governments still divided on what the best way is to achieve this, has no national climate plan ready yet.