SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — There's some hocus-pocus going on with the emissions reduction numbers the European Union is proudly touting at the COP27 climate summit, climate campaigners allege.
The EU says it's one of the few parties to the Paris Agreement to actually follow the rules and beef up its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) — U.N.-speak for the promises made under the 2015 pact. The bloc's original proposal was to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by the end of the decade, but three new rule changes boost that to 57 percent.
“The EU stands ready to update our NDC, reflecting this higher ambition ... So, don’t let anyone tell you, here or outside, that the EU is backtracking”, Frans Timmermans, the commissioner in charge of the bloc's Green Deal project, said in Sharm El-Sheikh on Tuesday.
But climate NGOs are lot more skeptical.
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