EU Tries to Forge New Climate Targets  11/04 06:04

   The European Union is attempting to forge new climate goals on Tuesday 
before the U.N. climate talks in Brazil starting next week.

   BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union is attempting to forge new climate goals 
on Tuesday before the U.N. climate talks in Brazil starting next week.

   Ministers from across the 27-nation bloc are meeting in Brussels to try and 
get at least 15 to align their nationally-determined emissions targets in order 
to have a stronger negotiating position during the COP30 summit in Belm.

   "We need to show to the world that we are leaders in climate change. We need 
to deliver adequate signals for investors. Today's the day," Spanish climate 
minister Sara Aagesen said before the meeting.

   The EU's long-held leadership of action on climate is under threat by 
domestic and international pressure.

   Wildfires, heat waves, and floods have disrupted life across Europe, 
spurring calls for more climate action. But crises like Russia's war in 
Ukraine, and a newly volatile relationship with the United States, have 
increased political and economic pressure to curtail flagship environmental 
policies.

   A recent weakening of a deforestation law by the European Commission, the 
EU's executive arm, disturbed environmentalists. They worried that it signaled 
a deeper disenchantment with green priorities by European Commission President 
Ursula von der Leyen. In February, she had announced an economic policy that 
some said eroded her 2019 Green Deal. But von der Leyen said in September that 
"the world can count on Europe's climate leadership" and pledged that the EU is 
"on our way to climate neutrality" and would slash carbon emissions by 90% by 
2040.

   She has linked climate investment to sovreignty and defense, arguing that a 
self-reliant Europe can better face threats like disruptive tariffs or export 
controls, armed conflict and environmental disasters.

   Many EU governments have shifted to the right since the Paris Agreement in 
2015. Some see climate regulations as shackling the economy, while others say 
Europe will either make and sell renewables or be forced to buy energy or green 
products from countries like China.

   Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's climate commissioner, said that the bloc needed to 
"bridge climate action with competitiveness and industrial savviness, if you 
will, and independence that is going to be the name of the game in the years 
that we have ahead of us."

   "We'll do our utmost to be successful, but it takes 27 to tango," he said of 
the negotiations on Tuesday.

   The U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and set back its 
climate goals has rattled Europe, whose climate vision was in part forged in 
partnership with the Democratic administrations of U.S. Presidents Barack Obama 
and Joseph Biden.

   The Paris Agreement aims to keep average global temperature from rising 
beyond 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally limit it to 1.5 
degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to the 1850s. To do that, 
the agreement says nations must slash planet-warming pollution that results 
when coal, oil and gas are burned.

   The EU's commitments in Paris have driven investment in renewable energies 
and electric vehicles, often in cooperation and at odds with Chinese companies. 
Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest 
amount on record last year, soaring to a height not seen in human civilization 
and "turbocharging" the Earth's climate and causing more extreme weather, 
according to the U.N. weather agency.

   Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent and has been heating up 
twice as fast as other regions since the 1980s. The heat has been linked to 
more intense rains and floods, and the report predicts rainfall decline and 
more severe droughts in southern Europe.

   "Today is about the level of ambition, and it's about standing ground and 
not only sticking to talking the talk when it is easy, but also walking the 
walk when it becomes difficult," Swedish climate minister Romina Pourmokhtari 
said in Brussels.

   The COP30 summit in Brazil is scheduled to take place Nov. 10-21.