Step up emissions cuts in agriculture, says EU climate chief

The EU must pick up the pace on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the agricultural sector, the bloc’s climate commissioner said Tuesday.

The bloc slashed its emissions by around 3 percent last year, meaning it has now achieved a 32.5 percent reduction compared to 1990 levels, according to preliminary data, the European Commission said in a report out Tuesday. The target for 2030 is 55 percent.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s new climate commissioner, told reporters that the EU is “on track” to meet its 2030 targets, but added: “However, to fully achieve these targets, the pace of emission reductions needs to step up.”

For that, “we need much more substantial progress on cutting emissions in agriculture,” he said.

Tackling agricultural emissions has long been a hot-button issue in the EU, with many countries reluctant to impose new rules on farmers. Recent legislative efforts to make agriculture more sustainable, such as a new Nature Restoration Law, are facing fierce backlash.

Hoekstra acknowledged that the topic is “very sensitive in many member states,” but said meeting the EU’s climate targets requires a “way of farming that will be different from how it used to be.”

Besides agriculture, he singled out the buildings and transport sectors as lagging behind, and warned that the bloc urgently needs to boost its natural carbon sinks, such as forests.

He also called on member countries to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, saying that “most ... are anachronistic and unhelpful to our clean energy transition.”