The study involved eight countries, one of them Portugal, and was published by the European Climate Action Network (CAN-Europe), within the scope of the UNIFY project, which monitors the execution of the National Energy and Climate Plans of the various countries of the European Union. The Portuguese environmental association Zero is a partner in the project and the study was released today by it in a statement.
In the communiqué, it is recalled that the States must present the long-term strategy for a climate and energy transition and that, despite the deadline for submission of this tool being January 1, 2020, “the submission of seven countries is still missing” and the deadline for the European Commission’s assessment is not clear.
An analysis by CAN-Europe focused on, in addition to Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Spain. The technical report that the development and implementation of long-term strategies have very different levels among the countries involved in the study, in terms of ambition, political leadership and public participation.
According to the document, the Czech Republic did not update its long-term strategy and Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia and Spain were late in submitting their strategies. Poland has not yet delivered it.
“Regarding ambition, the long-term strategies of Portugal, Spain, Hungary and Slovenia establish at national level the same objective of the European Union of climate neutrality until 2050”, the analysis notes, according to which Poland does not prepare the strategy long term, but a document that is protecting the state energy companies and the large electricity companies.
Portugal, with a long-term strategy that corresponds to the Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality in 2050, could, says Zero, anticipate carbon neutrality data, “making it closer to 2040”.
In fact, adds the environmental organization, the Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality should be updated, since the end of the use of coal anticipated for this year and the installed capacity of renewable energies ”is evolving faster than expected”.
The report now released calls on the European Commission to quickly demand all the missing long-term strategies and make an assessment of the lack of collective ambition.
“These national promotion plans play an important role in implementing the objectives of the European Ecological Pact and paving the way for Europe’s fair contribution to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C”, says, quoted in the analysis, the director of CAN-Europe, Wendel Trio.
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