The Brief – The new climate target will take compromise and cash. In abundance

So they did it: by 2040, the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions should be no more than a tenth of what they were in 1990. Or to put it another way, less than a sixth of what they are right now.
It’s easy to grow complacent – cynical, even – about climate action at the political level.
Anyone who was at the COP29 climate conference in Baku last year – as I was – will have sensed the futility of governments wrangling over what seem like pennies, given what’s at stake. Added to which the US, which had already ramped up oil and gas production to world record levels under the Biden administration, has pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
But without the luxury of oil and gas reserves, Europe is now asking if it can afford to replace gas from the east with gas from the leaky fracking fields of America. The proposed 2040 target implies a more profound choice: one between import dependency and missing the target, or accelerating the green transition.
Seventeen years after Europe’s first emissions reduction target was set in law, the appetite for fossil fuels remains high, thanks to the failure to insulate homes, switch heat pumps for gas boilers, or halt the rise of emissions from road transport.
The scale of investment now needed is beyond any New Deal or Marshall Plan, or the bank bailouts that followed the 2008 financial crisis.
It took a war with real bullets for Europe’s champion of frugality to tear off its self-imposed fiscal straightjacket. Will that logic – coupled with a pooling of European debt, which has only ever happened in the face of a global pandemic – be replicated to reach the 90% target?

Resistance to regional funding changes – Fourteen EU countries want “a stand-alone Cohesion Policy” to be preserved in the EU’s next budget, as the Commission prepares to unveil its proposal for the next long-term budget.
Von der Flyin’ – The Commission President took 16 private jet trips in 2024, drawing criticism from opponents.

Defusing New Caledonia discontent – Talks about a shared vision for the archipelago’s future are being held in Paris, more than a year after deadly riots plunged the overseas territory into crisis.
Where energy interests and migrant crossings intersect – Greece is facing a sharp spike in migrant arrivals from Libya just as Ankara and Tripoli step up energy exploration near Crete – fuelling fears of geopolitical coercion and escalating tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.
Poland, pharma, promotion – The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has delivered a landmark judgment, ruling that Poland’s longstanding ban on pharmacy advertising violates EU law.

Today's issue of The Brief was brought to you by Robert Hodgson.