The EU is being sued for failing to set ambitious climate targets in sectors that contribute more than half of the bloc’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) argue that climate targets laid out for agriculture, waste, transport and small industry in the 27 EU member states until the end of the decade are not based on the best science and are therefore “grossly inadequate”.
The lawsuit was formally filed before the court of justice of the EU earlier this year and has been fast-tracked. The NGOs filed their last written comments in August before an oral hearing expected in 2025.
The case relates to annual emission limits for member states, which are set by the European Commission under the Effort Sharing Regulation, a key pillar of EU climate policy, and get smaller each year. These sectors are not included in the EU emissions trading scheme and together make up 57% of the bloc’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The targets were toughened last year after the EU raised its emissions reduction target for 2030 to 55% based on 1990 levels. The NGOs believe this revision was not nearly ambitious enough to comply with EU treaties, the charter of fundamental rights of the EU and the Paris agreement.
They argue that the EU should have assessed whether the goals aligned with the Paris agreement’s aim of keeping global warming to a maximum of 1.5C above preindustrial levels, beyond which, over the long term, the worst impacts of climate change are expected. And they say it should have assessed whether it was doing its fair share by global standards and whether it was feasible to do more.
They also challenge the regulation’s impact assessment, saying it should have examined how the regulation affects fundamental rights such as the right to life and to environmental protection.
Last year the NGOs asked the commission to review the targets, which would require a 40% cut in emissions by the end of the decade. The executive refused, saying the claims made were unfounded. It said it had analysed the impacts of the regulation on relevant fundamental rights and maintained it did not need to carry out any science-based assessments.
Gerry Liston, senior lawyer with GLAN, said: “States are obliged to adopt science-based emissions targets consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C. We have outlined how the EU’s 2030 targets were not derived from best available climate science, a point which the commission has not even contested in its defence of our case. Instead it has tried to have the case struck out on mere technicalities.”
CAN Europe coordinated a previous lawsuit against EU climate targets, which was not admitted. Recent changes to the law mean it can bring a case such as this more directly, but it has no legal way of challenging the bloc’s wider 55% target, which it also believes is inadequate.
Sven Harmeling, the head of climate at CAN Europe, said: “We have to use all available channels to push the European Commission to bring the EU’s climate ambition on track with its fair share for the 1.5C goal of the Paris agreement. The EU has to ramp up emissions reduction and achieve at least a 65% cut by 2030 if it wants to be a credible actor. The recent acceleration in expanding renewable energies in many countries and related cost reductions provide new momentum for this.”
The NGOs hope their case will be bolstered by a landmark decision in April by the European court of human rights, which ruled that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions was a clear violation of the human rights of a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women.
The European Commission is allowed to provide one more written response. It has been approached for comment.
