In this paper, researchers from the European Think Tanks Group propose a set of actions the EU should consider to raise its climate ambition and exert credible climate leadership in a challenging global context.
On 24 and 25 September, heads of state and government will discuss progress on implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at a summit in New York – for the first time since the agenda was adopted in 2015. With more than ten years to go, is there any reason for optimism? In which areas did the world make real progress? Where should we speed up implementation? And what could the new EU leadership do better in the next five years?
Developed countries are making progress in reducing carbon emissions – and Government regulation of the private sector is playing its part. In the UK, for example, and alongside other measures, the requirement to report energy and carbon emissions has recently been extended to a wide range of quoted and unquoted companies and limited liability partnerships. This is intended to help improve energy efficiency, support companies in cutting costs, and at the same time reduce carbon emissions
Ten years after committing to phase-out fossil fuel subsidies, EU governments still lack concrete plans to put an end to taxpayers’ money being spent in a way that accelerates the climate crisis. While EU Member States are supposed to report on their fossil fuel subsidies and plans to end them as part of their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), new analysis shows that none of the draft plans present a comprehensive overview of subsidies nor a clear plan to end them.
After the recent European elections in Italy, a populist leadership is set to be the driver of the Italian European agenda for the next months. These populist forces are destined to play a marginal role in the negotiations over the new Commission as well as the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2017. The growing role of Lega within the Government is expected to have a deep impact on the MFF, with agriculture, cohesion funds, migration and border management likely to become the real priorities for Italy at the expense of the development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.
In the years ahead, the European Union faces a number of vital challenges, and many of those lie beyond its external borders. As laid out by Simon Maxwell in a recent post to this blog, swift and decisive action is required in the fight against global warming, promoting sustainable development,
The new European Parliament will convene in Strasbourg in the first week of July. As a newly- or re-elected member of the European Parliament (MEP), your first priority should be to elbow your way onto the Development Committee. This is a higher priority than buying a return ticket to Brussels,
It may one day be the case that European Parliament elections are fought on a truly pan-territorial basis, with parties, politicians and platforms all operating at a European level. That is not going to happen this year, but there are moves in that direction. The party groups in the European
