EU Steps Back on 2040 Climate Goal in Order to Win Over Doubters

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union has gone back to the drawing board for its 2040 climate target in a bid to make sure it can secure a majority among the bloc’s 27 member states and parliament.

The EU’s climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said coming up with a new goal would probably take “a couple of months.” The European Commission initially wanted a target to cut 90% of emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels — a level it will still treat as a starting point, while showing flexibility in order to secure political support.

“We’re still full of ambition and I hope and I’m confident that I will have secured a landing zone before summer,” Hoekstra told reporters. “At the same time, I also want to make sure that we are sensitive to request for a bit of pragmatism.”

The delay underscores the challenge the EU is facing in keeping its climate ambition on track amid several competing priorities, including how best to respond to President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs and the need to massively scale up defense spending as the US becomes increasingly isolationist. It also underscores the growing feeling in the EU that setting stricter emissions-cutting targets is no longer a vote winner.

The commission had planned to propose the 90% goal in the first quarter, but the bloc’s legislative branch is struggling to find member state support. Meanwhile, the center-right European People’s Party, the largest group in parliament, has grown increasingly skeptical that climate ambition aligns with the needs of heavy industry.

Poland, which holds the EU’s rotating Presidency and has elections next month, has pushed to delay the proposal. Hoekstra said the new version could be announced in June or July, the latter coming after Poland hands the baton to Denmark.

Amid the domestic political wrangling, the United Nations is also putting pressure on the EU to come forward soon with its climate plan, known as a nationally-determined contribution, which lays out how countries plan to transition their economies before 2035. All nations have to submit theirs before the COP30 climate summit takes place in Brazil this November. China still has to submit its plan as well, while the US is set to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

The idea remains that the commission will propose the 2040 climate target and then derive its 2035 pledge from it, yet the delay means the window to do so has become increasingly tight for the EU. Hoekstra said he was still confident the bloc would submit its plan by September, though wouldn’t be drawn on whether the 2035 goal would be a simple midpoint on a straight line between 2030 and 2040. A curve would imply accelerated action in the latter half of the decade.

Hoekstra said he will spend the coming weeks trying to drum up support for an ambitious goal among lawmakers and national capitals. In a communication laid out last year, carbon capture and storage was expected to do much of the heavy lifting in meeting the 2040 climate goal, but Hoekstra said alternatives may be more cost effective. At COP29 last year, countries finalized rules for international carbon markets, which could prove a cheaper solution.

“You might see differences in the mix of things that are more attractive from a climate perspective or just more attractive from a commercial perspective,” he said. “The geopolitics have become way more difficult and that is of course affecting basically almost everything we do.”

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.