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European long-term climate roadmap to be unveiled in November
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Current emissions-cut trajectory not enough to meet Paris goal
Taking a long view and encouraging companies to front-load actions to cap future costs will be among the thrusts of the climate push for the bloc’s executive suites. In its longer-term strategy to be presented in November to achieve targets set under the Paris accord, the European Commission is considering options ranging from lowering greenhouse-gas discharges by 80 percent by 2050 compared with 1990 levels to net-zero emissions by mid-century.
“Having a 2050 perspective helps people accept more ambitious paths,” Mauro Petriccione, the director general for climate at the EU’s regulatory arm, said in an interview in Brussels. “That also means that people should start thinking now that at some point they will have to go beyond the 2030 target. You give them a signal now, you help them plan for the long-term.”
The steps are aimed at showing how determined the 28-nation bloc is to honor the accord’s targets even in the face of President Donald Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the 2015 agreement signed by almost all other countries in the world.