Debate: Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States  - Land use, land use change and forestry  - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System
Date: MONDAY, 13 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Ville Niinistö
Country: Poland
Language: EN

This is the future for the economy as well. There is a growing demand for regenerative farming and forestry and also in nature restoration in protecting our biodiversity. It can also contribute to added climate benefits. This is what the LULUCF Regulation is about. At the outset of the trilogue negotiations, both the European Parliament and the Council supported the objective of reaching -310 million tonnes of net removals by 2030, as proposed by the Commission, and maintained the idea of national targets. This will allow the EU to reach around -57% of net emission reductions by 2030 economy wide. For the first time, the principle that Member States should increase their sinks has been endorsed by the co—legislators with a binding 2030 target for each Member State. This is a historic achievement. The new 2030 target of -310 million tonnes of net removals by 2030 within the EU for the LULUCF sector will apply to Member States to reverse the current shrink of natural land sinks we have seen in the last decade. This is ultimately necessary if we are to achieve carbon neutrality, a balance between emissions and removals by 2050 at the latest within the Union, and also beyond that to carbon negativity. Still, the trilogues were not easy. The Council wanted to increase even further flexibilities given to Member States for achieving their targets, thus reducing the integrity of the proposal. As part of the deal to get their 2030 target, Member States will be allowed to deviate from a linear trajectory as long as all the deficits produced in the 2026—2029 period are compensated by equivalent surpluses within the same period. This can be seen as acceptable. We also, from the Parliament side, managed to negotiate that Member States that would deviate from that trajectory will have to adopt corrective action plans similar to what has been agreed in the final effort sharing trilogue that took place a few days before the final LULUCF trilogue. What’s more, any excess deficit about the budget will be multiplied by a factor of 1.08 and added to the Member State 2030 target. This increase is the importance of monitoring and scrutinising that there is a proper carbon sink policy in place, but also gives the Commission possibilities to implement this policy. Member States will have also access to other flexibilities, including the possibility to use emission allocations they may have in excess in effort sharing or excess LULUCF credits generated and sold by other Member States. An additional flexibility of 178 million tonnes for EU 27 over the entire period is available, in particular to compensate emissions generated by natural disturbances, the longer-term impact of climate change and the result of exceptionally high proportion of organic soils. The Council proposal to be able to fully discount extreme weather events, however, was rejected. For the first time, Member States will also have to report on how they took into account the ‘no significant harm principle’ in meeting the LULUCF targets. They also need to improve the data they use to report their LULUCF net removals. This means that there will be a larger integration of biodiversity policies and climate policies, which is really good. We also start to assess what kind of policies Member States put in place to manage their things properly for the first time. So therefore, overall, the Parliament’s negotiating team worked well-defined compromises. I thank them all. I also thank the Commission for their contribution and even the Council. Therefore, I ask for your endorsement of the negotiated deal from you, my esteemed colleagues.