A Chance to Influence EU 2040 Climate Targets – URGENT DEADLINE 22ND JUNE
There is a time-limited opportunity for business to use its voice in advocating for political action on climate.
The EU has launched its Public consultation on the EU climate target for 2040
The European Climate Law (Article 4) calls on the Commission to make a proposal to set an intermediate Union-wide climate target for 2040 to achieve the climate neutrality objective by 2050 and publish a report on the projected indicative GHG budget for 2030-2050. This initiative aims at proposing the 2040 climate target, in view of an amendment to the European Climate Law.
This consultation holds one of the best options to ask for maximum ambition from the EU in its journey to meet the Paris Agreement.
POW has worked alongside CAN Europe to develop a consultation response that pushes the EU to set the most ambitious 2040 climate targets possible.
Amongst other technical points, we are calling for a >90% reduction in GHG emissions by 2040, the most ambitious target the consultation allows.
The consultation permits an additional statement of intent to be included alongside the consultation response; this is where your business can make a difference. Protect Our Winters is calling on the Outdoor Industry to add their names to this statement. Not only adding your brand’s voice to the ambitious calls of our consultation response but also calling on the EU to move further and faster to preserve the world that we and our communities love.
You can read the full statement below:
The European Outdoor sector, as an industry, welcomes the opportunity of input to this
consultation and has called for the maximum ambition for which the questionnaire allows; a 90%
reduction in GHG emissions from 1990s levels by 2040.
As signatories of this statement, we are willing to make difficult decisions and accept the implications that this level of ambition requires. Indeed, our companies are already making great strides in this direction, and we ask for our ambition to be matched by the EU in the form of tough and necessary legislation reducing the climate and environmental impact of all industrial and commercial sectors.
The consultation does not, however, ask questions about the desire for action on the 2 key topics
driving climate breakdown:
1. The urgent need to end all subsidisation of the fossil fuel industry.
2. The urgent need to halt fossil fuel expansion. This means blocking any new oil or gas fields, coal mines or coal mine extensions, as described in the IEA World Energy Outlook Report 2021.
The signatories of this letter feel both steps are essential to the future of not just our sector but that of a livable planet. The outdoor industry is a crucial player in the European economy, expecting a consumer base of 195 million people by 2025 and a wholesale value of over 6 billion Euros. The outdoor community sees the impact of climate change on our environment firsthand with the threats to outdoor sporting activity clearly defined in the 2022 IPCC report. From increased rockfall and avalanche risk in our mountains, to reduced snowpack directly impacting the winter sports community; these impacts affect the future of our business sector and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
However severe the financial impacts on our sector may be, they are simply forebearers to the far greater environmental and societal impacts of a world where global temperature rise is allowed to reach 2 degrees or beyond.
The Outdoor Industry stands in support of an EU Commission that shows maximum ambition at
this critical time for climate action. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss both this sector’s willingness to act with high ambition and how it can aid the EU’s climate action with the appropriate decision-makers.
In expected collaboration on the securing of a better future.
Yours the undersigned:
