Overview
- EU environment ministers approved a legally binding goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 90% by 2040 versus 1990 levels.
- The deal allows up to 5% of the target to be met through reductions purchased outside the EU, with a possible extra 5% in specified difficulties such as major wildfires.
- A new emissions trading system for heating and road fuels was pushed back one year to start in 2028, and a 2035 reduction range was set without legal force.
- Environmental groups, including Carbon Market Watch, condemned the external-credit allowance as a loophole and an accounting trick.
- COP30’s leaders’ meeting opened in Belém with U.S. President Trump and Japan’s prime minister absent, as UN chief António Guterres warned a temporary breach of 1.5°C in the early 2030s is unavoidable and Brazil proposed a tropical-forest fund of about $250 billion.