The EU proposes slashing pollution 90% by 2040

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24062570/europe-eu-2040-climate-change-carbon-capture-strategy

by Brajeshwar • 2 years ago

43 50 2 years ago

coldtea3• 2 years ago

Proposing things is free after all, and few of the politicians of 2024 will be there in 2040 to be called about it, and even if they are, they can blame it on previous office holders and whatever...

This is as "trustworthy" as the "Only sell EVs by 2035" EUs proposal, and Musk's mission to Mars.

bryanlarsen4• 2 years ago

OTOH, it could be as trustworthy as the Montreal protocol of 1987 which agreed to reduce CFC production by 50% by 1999.

Instead production in signatory countries hit 0 by 1996.

Measured scepticism is rational. Blind scepticism isn't.

toomuchtodo4• 2 years ago

Indeed. Most coal will be phased out of Europe by 2035 [1], and could run entirely on renewables by 2030 if they choose to spend accordingly (~€2T, not terribly feasible but gives an idea of fiat-time tradeoff) [2], leaving buildings (heat pumps [3]) and EVs [4] to sweep out quite a bit of the remaining emissions (with manufacturing, agriculture, and other sources still needing solutioning [5]).

[1] https://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/

[2] https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/10/09/europe-can-beco...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/23/heat-pum...

[4] https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/new-registr...

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240108/road-transportat...

coldtea3• 2 years ago

Those were just specific substances for which they had a replacement at hand (and those HCFC and HFC replacements? Turns out they're not so good for environment either, and they had to start restricting those too, though they're still going strong).

Not for something general, like overall polution, of which there's 0 chance to reduce to 90%, or even 50% by 2040.

Let's wait and see who called it.

jokethrowaway• 2 years ago

It's not blind, it's based on reasoning.

CFCs were replaced fairly easily with HFCs (which also contributed to climate change. GreenAmerica says `They were replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which do not deplete the ozone, but they do have up to 9,000 times greater warming capacity than carbon dioxide.`)

What's the alternative for fossil fuels?

Even if we increase production of nuclear energy and renewables, we're still left with cars. Electric cars require tons of lithium and after the battery did its course they lose a good chunk of their value. The economics in EV are just completely different compared to petrol cars and that's doable only if you are wealthy.

menschmanfred2• 2 years ago

Sooo your solution is to just do nothing at all?

marcosdumay• 2 years ago

Hum... no. The GP is complaining that what is on the title is the equivalent of doing nothing at all.

Of course, there's an entire plan, with shorter term goals and ways to achieve them. With actionable steps, what is a huge change from most climate accords. The article just does a very bad work of citing those and not getting at any detail at all.

coldtea3• 2 years ago

My solution to the problem of pollution, or to the problem of vaccuous promises by politicians which is what I pointed at?

nebula88043• 2 years ago

Given SpaceX's amazing progress in 2023 (and every year before) I'd bet the Mars mission is going to happen.

People don't seem to realize that in 2023 they broke the record for most amount of launches of any entity on earth. They beat the second best record (Soviet Union at 60 launches in a year). His Falcon heavy updates broke the record for most amount of cargo delivered(beating Saturn V).

The rate they are iterating on Starship means they may make their targets on that ship this year.

The private sector has made incredible progress in getting this green initiative done. While the investments in EVs and batteries have definitely helped, a lot of this rhetoric based targets have gone nowhere. Just look at the results of COP21. I was there in Paris. It feels like such a long time ago now.

The real question is why these initiatives fail? Maybe its just not possible to have the entire population transition over to a new way of thinking about emissions. After all what are emissions? They are an unaccounted for externality. Some percentage of the population cannot make their lives/businesses/operations work if they have to account for this cost.

anovikov3• 2 years ago

8% of it is from carbon capture or offsetting, which is bullshit. 82% reduction from 1990 levels is only 2.5x reduction in 10 years (2030-2040) from easily achievable "Fit for 55" plan, which is currently seen as below-inertial scenario and actual 2030 emissions are going to come out lower. So nothing impossible here.

CO2 emissions from power production decreased by 46% in EU in only 7 years (2016-2023) and are in freefall now. Just as an example.

okokwhatever• 2 years ago

Bullshit. EU moving production to other countries is not to slash pollution. I know there will be academic explanations to convince us this is the way but once common people start to face real life problems (energy cost, food security issues, layoffs because of industry relocations, etc) they will rise the flag of revolution. Unless this is the expected result...

idiotsecant• 2 years ago

I wonder what you suspect the effects of widespread sustained climate change will be? Of the 'real life' problems coming down the pipe, energy cost, food security, and industrial disturbances are the happy, rosy ones.

t1E9mE7JTRjf• 2 years ago

do you have any credible sources to those claims?

lm28469• 2 years ago

Moving production abroad makes all of what you mention harder in times of crisis

BlueTemplar• 2 years ago

By "pollution" they mean "net greenhouse gas emissions".

coolThingsFirst• 2 years ago

Read that as population

PeterStuer• 2 years ago

I bett it is going to involve more moving numbers on a spreadsheet than actual reductions in the real world.

nonameking2026• 2 years ago

Co2 is not exactly pollution

Traubenfuchs• 2 years ago

We recently got a series of articles on the EUs stagnating economy and industry and a few days later we get this ludicrous proposal. The EU is probably one of the most masochistic regional entities in the world.

phicoh2• 2 years ago

Sometimes regulation can help an industry forward quite a bit. For example when a cleaner technology requires massive investments, but nobody wants to be first. When there is a clear cut-off date, like with ICE cars in the EU, then manufacturers can justify the investments and go ahead.

At the same time, a lot of spending on green technologies often means a lot of local jobs. Which can be good for the economy if the money would otherwise be spend on products or services that come from outside the EU.

Finally, economic indicators often don't quite capture quality of life, etc. For example, if EU cities make it harder to drive a car into city centers then that may result in lower economic growth, because fewer cars are needed. But people might be more happy walking, biking, etc.

nebula88043• 2 years ago

But people might be more happy walking, biking, etc.

Or they might drag their tractors into the highways and block off all access to the city in protest.

I feel like I had this same conversation against a presenter at CCC recently. Do people really not see the backlash brewing against the left for proposing these ideas onto others?

mytailorisrich2• 2 years ago

Long term you cannot maintain "good quality of life" if you don't produce the wealth to pay for it.

We're already seeing this happening in Europe.

nhma• 2 years ago

The EU could take a page out of Denmark's climate playbook to easily meet emissions targets.

A large contributor of projected Danish emissions has been low-lying wetlands converted to farmland via draining. Calculations predicted that reflooding these areas could saves millions of tons of emissions, so this became a hot political topic. However, the Danish climate minister recently announced that he had wonderful climate-related news to share; the emissions from these areas were significantly less than first anticipated! And with these magical news, Denmark's 2025 emissions goals have now been met. However, what the minister failed to mention was the fact that the only reason these lands emit less than anticipated is because they have already emitted most of the greenhouse gasses stored in them, just at a much faster rate than initially predicted.

scotty79• 2 years ago

Still good news given all the recent farmers protests in the EU.

mytailorisrich2• 2 years ago

If they destroy productive farmland, what's the impact on food supplies and food prices?

This sounds desperate and counterproductive so good of they can 'justify' not doing it.

Astraco4• 2 years ago

EU proposes being poorer by 2040

vdaea• 2 years ago

They did and are still doing a great job of making us poorer by 2020.

stavros3• 2 years ago

Why care about the environment when you can be richhhhhhhh

Astraco4• 2 years ago

I don't want to be rich but I don't want to be poor either. These policies won't save the planet, and will make the life of millions of people miserable. And if you are worried about the rich, look at who making money with theses decisions an who is lobbying the EU.

gttrew• 2 years ago

Modern day regimes simply have the country's universities release a few research papers ahead of time popularizing and inventing problems that have a solution equal to the changes the dictators would like to see come into effect in the society. Who are we to say climate change is not real against the universities ? Or that we do not wish to be made poor and eat bugs to fix these problems because we see no evidence on the ground they exist ?

jurschreuder• 2 years ago

This article makes it sound very unrealistic.

But emission is already down 45% since 1990 in the EU and they're ahead of the original targets because of the war with Russia.

In 2023 alone emission from the power sector was cut by 23%.

I would not be surprised if this target is met a lot sooner than 2040.

Source: https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind...

Investing in the energy sector makes a lot of sense for the EU because one of its biggest problems is the cost of energy, mainly caused by its reliance on fossil fuels.

So also purely from an economical point of view this is a good strategy.

DrNosferatu• 2 years ago

Any type of predictions at that scale (40years) are worthless:

Could you predict Brexit in 1980?

The EU proposes slashing pollution 90% by 2040

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