European environment ministers have abandoned their attempts to raise the European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for the year 2030 from 55% to 57% (from 1990 levels), after opposition to the plan from Poland, Hungary and Italy. Members of the bloc were hoping to make the change prior to the COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates which starts at the end of November, thus giving the conference some momentum.

While ministers disagreed over text around phasing out “unabated” fossil fuels, they finally agreed on phrases that there is “no room for new coal power” and that there should be “a fully or predominantly decarbonised global power system in the 2030s”. Arguably, it is these statements – along with commitments on financing and renewable energy targets – that will carry more weight than a slightly revised target, though the target revision would have been a symbolic positive, at least.

This year’s COP shall be an important one in that it may see a first global ‘stocktake’ of progress towards the Paris Agreement goals, as well as updated greenhouse gas emissions reduction pledges from nations that postponed giving them at the last two COPs.