Europe will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 as part of a deal reached today.
The European Commission’s draft 2030 climate and energy package also sets an EU-wide binding target for member states to source at least 27 percent of their energy from renewable sources by the same date.
Facing pressure from utilities and individual member states that argued setting mandatory renewable energy goals would further increase energy prices, some EU officials had wanted to make the targets nonbinding.
The climate and energy goals, however, still need approval from member states and the European Parliament.
The 2030 framework also includes a proposal that aims to boost Europe’s struggling emissions trading system by establishing a market stability reserve starting in 2021. The commissions says the reserve would both address the surplus of emission allowances that has built up in recent years and improve the system’s resilience to major shocks by automatically adjusting the supply of allowances to be auctioned.