Spending 60% of the EU’s key infrastructure fund on contributing to climate objectives – as proposed by the European Commission today – will ensure smarter and cleaner spending, green NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) has said. The Connecting Europe Facility would have €42.3 billion to co-finance investments including €30 billion for transport, as part of the draft 2021-2027 EU budget just published.
Any violations of environmental protections in EU trade agreements should be subject to the same state-to-state dispute settlement as violations of the commercial clauses, a new study by sustainable transport group Transport & Environment (T&E) has said. Currently there are practically no ways to enforce and tackle breaches of environmental and sustainability provisions in EU trade agreements, but earlier this month EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced that she wants to make sustainable development chapters of trade agreements more effective.
The Board of sustainable transport group Transport & Environment (T&E) has today announced William Todts as its new Executive Director. He succeeds Jos Dings, who this week leaves the position after 13 years.
A study by the respected Öko-Institut in Germany says Europe needs to slash its transport emissions by 94% by 2050. That's what it takes to avoid catastrophic 2 degree warming. Meanwhile, EU governments – particularly Italy and Poland – are trying to destroy the already inadequate target of -30% by 2030.
T&E welcomes the EASAC's Decarbonisation of transport: options and challenges paper. The focus of the study is specifically road transport. Unlike T&E's own work on this, measures are not explicitly modeled, and there is little discussion of the cost.
EU governments and MEPs have agreed to spend €7 billion of the bloc’s transport infrastructure budget on more sustainable projects like electric vehicle re-charging points and upgrades to rail signalling. The projects will need to be co-financed by member states, meaning public spending on green transport infrastructure will be much higher. Transport & Environment (T&E) said that, as EU member states deliberate on a draft strategy to fully decarbonise European transport by 2050, last night’s deal on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) makes that target more achievable.
Poland has to reduce its non-ETS greenhouse gas emissions by 7% in 2030, and transport is one of the highest emitters within these non-ETS sectors. As a result, and also to comply with the EU's long-term decarbonisation goals and the Paris agreement, Poland must take urgent and robust action to reduce the emissions in transport. In this report for the European Climate Initiative (EUKI), T&E analyses and proposes a series of key actions that Poland should undertake to significantly cut transport greenhouse gas emissions.
Italy has to reduce its non-ETS greenhouse gas emissions by 33% in 2030, and transport is one of the highest emitters within these non-ETS sectors. As a result, and also to comply with the EU's long-term decarbonisation goals and the Paris agreement, Italy must take urgent and robust action to reduce the emissions in transport. In this report for the European Climate Initiative (EUKI), T&E analyses and proposes a series of key actions that Italy should undertake to decarbonise transport.
Europe’s climate strategy should include ending carbon emissions from transport by 2050, the European Commission has said. In a draft long-term plan published last month, the Commission outlined eight emissions reduction scenarios for Europe but came out in favour of reaching net emissions. It came as European governments signed off on a global agreement on the rules needed to avoid 1.5 warming in 2050 and catastrophic climate change.
MEPs have given a thumbs-up to spending €10 billion of the EU’s transport infrastructure budget on smart, sustainable and safe transport projects like re-charging stations and railway signaling upgrades. T&E said that guaranteeing this funding for the period 2021-2027 – as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – is crucial if Europe is to meet its climate targets.