Green Deal: the European Union's climate ambition becomes a reality

In 2019, Ursula Van Der Leven, the president of the European Commission unveiled her Green Deal, an ambitious roadmap of 1,000 billion euros of investment over 10 years with the ambition of making the European Union the first "climate neutral" continent by 2050. The ambition is to make the European Union the first 'climate neutral' continent by 2050.

On 21 April, after months of negotiations, the European Parliament and the European Council (representing the environment ministers of the 27 Member States) reached an agreement on the European climate law. Many of the new features of the European Parliament's proposals will come to the fore in the coming months.

First of all, this agreement sets out the intermediate stages and establishes a guideline for the next three decades: the 2030 target for reducing the EU's GHG emissions has thus been raised to a target of 57% compared to 1990. Secondly, the creation of a European High Council for the Climate has just been decided. Finally, the adoption of the European climate law paves the way for the reform of 50 European laws by the end of 2022. This is a major step forward for the realisation of the Green Deal.

What does this mean for freight transport?

The transport sector accounts for 25% of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions and this share is growing.

The Green Deal sets a target of reducing these emissions by 90% by 2050. All modes of transport must contribute to this reduction.

The European Commission is focusing on several areas to enable the transport sector to significantly reduce its carbon footprint and environmental impacts:

develop multimodal transport,

decarbonising road transport,

accelerate automated, connected mobility (through intelligent traffic management and digitisation), significantly less polluting transport in the heart of cities,

ending fossil fuel subsidies,

promote the production and deployment of sustainable alternative fuels.

The FRET 21 team and AUTF, through its European organisation, are closely following all of these legislative and regulatory developments and a future article will provide more details on the European climate law.