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Emissions effort sharing should remain key tool to reach EU climate targets – study

(eceee news, 9 Feb 2021) How should the EU reach its 55% emissions reduction goal for 2030: Strengthening the existing policy architecture with effort sharing and national targets, or moving to a European-wide carbon pricing system with no national binding targets? A new study explores how keeping the system of national sectoral targets would lead to greater reductions of GHGs and higher energy savings.

Among the radical policy ideas put forward in the European Commission’s so-called ‘fit for 55’ package was the scrapping of the 2018 Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), and extending emissions trading to cover transport or buildings.

However, according to the study, made by Stefan Scheuer Consulting, the Regulatory Assistance Project and Öko-Institut, the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) is an important driver for national action to deliver energy savings and essential to maximise the synergies between the different legislative instruments.

“The ′Fit for 55′ package is a unique opportunity to improve the coherence of the EU’s climate and energy efficiency policies. The ESR is essential to maximise the synergies between the different legislative instruments. Higher national GHG targets will secure national efforts needed to address market failures and barriers to energy efficiency investments together with the EED energy savings obligations.”, said Stefan Scheuer, one of the study’s authors.

Synergies between effort sharing & energy savings

The study looks at the interactions and synergies between three of the key policy instruments to implement the new 55% reduction goal: Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) and the energy savings obligations in Article 7 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

The European Commission will produce a policy plan to implement the 55% target by the end of June. Regulations that could be revised are the ESR, the ETS regulation, the EED and rules on land use and emissions from motor vehicles. 

The ESR is the only piece of EU legislation that contains legally binding national targets for major greenhouse emissions reductions.

According to the study, the Commission should propose ramping up the overall emissions reduction target in the non-ETS sector from 30% to 39% by 2030 (under the ESR, the baseline year is 2005, not 1990 as is the case for the EU’s overall emissions reduction target), and doubling the annual energy savings obligation under the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

“The energy savings obligation under the EED’s Article 7 will at least need to be doubled in order to meet the 55% climate goal: from the current 0.8% to 1.6% starting in 2025,” said Samuel Thomas, RAP.

A public consultation on the ESR reform ended on 5 February. Climate campaigners launched a petition, gathering over 45,000 signatures, to support national climate targets in the ‘Fit for 55’ package.

Wiew the study here

European Commission consultation

Effort sharing regulation

EverybodyCounts petition