The European Commission recently reported that “EU greenhouse gas emissions fell by 8.3% in 2023, compared with 2022”. This significant cut was widely welcomed across the press, and while most reporting did adopt measured language in describing the reduction, it was typically referred to as ‘progress’. But progress relative to what?
Introduction
In this succinct response, I compare the EU’s 8.3% cut in 2023 with the annual rate of emissions reduction necessary to deliver the Paris Agreement’s temperature (1.5 and 2°C) and equity (CBDR-RC) commitments. From my reading of the EU Climate Action Progress Report 2024, emissions from international aviation[1] and shipping[2] are not included in the 8.3% fall. On aviation, the report notes that the sector’s emissions (those captured in the ETS) rose by 9.5% in 2023, and that “the overall climate impact of aviation is currently two to four times higher than the effect of its past CO2 emissions alone”. This notwithstanding, for this headline-level comparison, I will assume that the 8.3% emissions reduction in 2023 includes aviation and shipping emissions.
Analysis
Since the IPCC’s Assessment Report 6 (2021), the scientific understanding of the link between emissions and temperature has improved. There is now a growing consensus that the carbon budgets for both 1.5°C and 2°C are significantly smaller than the IPCC’s headline values. Given this, the following analysis is based on the carbon budgets provided by Lamboll et al, and updated to the start of 2025.
For the Paris framing of “pursuing …1.5°C” (taken here as a 50% chance of not exceeding 1.5°C) the remaining carbon budget from the start of January 2025 is around 170 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2)[3]. For “well below 2°C” (taken here as an 83% chance of not exceeding 2°C, a headline probability used by the IPCC) the remaining carbon budget is significantly bigger, at around 575 GtCO2. A quick bit of maths shows that for the 1.5°C commitment, the global reduction rate from the start of January 2025 needs to be around 19% year on year. For 2°C the rate is lower, but still 7% year on year. With current annual CO2 emissions of around 42 GtCO2, the remaining 1.5°C carbon budget is now being consumed at 2% each month, and for 2°C at 0.6% each month.
However, the Paris Agreement (and every other COP protocol since the UNFCCC was established in 1992) also emphasises the need to factor in international equity (CBDR-RC) when determining national mitigation rates. Put simply wealthy industrialised nations and regions (such as the EU) need to lead on cutting emissions whilst also helping provide the technical and financial wherewithal for poorer nations to decarbonise without impinging on their development goals. Given this, and based on Anderson et al, for the EU to deliver on its fair contribution to even the 2°C commitment, it must deliver cuts in emissions of approaching 15% year on year, including international aviation and shipping emissions, and again starting in January 2025[4].
Conclusion
Whilst it is tempting to interpret the EU’s 8.3% reduction in emissions in 2023 as “progress”, deeper reflection and quantitative analysis suggest that such appealing language risks reinforcing an already complacent attitude towards the challenges posed by climate change.
As demonstrated, a third of a century on from the UNFCCC, the EU has, for a single year, achieved an 8.3% reduction in emissions, a rate of reduction that is half of what is necessary if the EU is to make its fair contribution to the 2°C characterisation of Paris. More disturbing still, such a rate, if it continued year after year, would still represent less than one third of the level necessary, globally, for just a flip of a coin chance of not exceeding a rise of 1.5°C.[5]
Ultimately, because climate change is an issue of rising cumulative emissions, each year that we fail to deliver the necessary rate of emissions reduction, so the necessary rate for the following year increases. Consequently, we are not making any progress, but rather, we are still stepping backwards, just not with such large strides as might otherwise be the case. But backwards nonetheless. This is not “progress”.
[1] Flights starting or finishing outside of the EEA.
[2] Voyages starting or finishing outside of the EEA. As of January 2024, the emissions of such voyages will incrementally be included within the EU ETS.
[3] As it stands “it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-virtually-certain-be-warmest-year-and-first-year-above-15degc. It is also certainly possible that this temperature rise will not drop back below 1.5°C (in any reasonable timeframe) and that there is now no remaining 1.5°C carbon budget.
[4] Given that there is now so little carbon budget remaining for a 50% chance of not exceeding 1.5°C (170 GtCO2, or just over four years of current global emissions), I see no quantitatively practical mechanism for apportioning the budget in accordance with even a weak interpretation of CBDR-RC. That said, the thirty-year legacy of deliberate failure to align national policies with international climate commitments by “developed country parties” (and indeed some “developing country parties”) does lend authority to arguments for significant reparations from wealthy high-emitting nations to poor low-emitting and more climate vulnerable regions.
[5] This assumes that the 1.5°C rise we have witnessed this year will fall below 1.5°C once some post El Nino ‘normality’ returns. This, of course, may well not be the case; see endnote 3.