A Climate Law for Polluters, Confirmed
By relying on offsets and carbon removals, Europe outsources its responsibility for the climate crisis and hands polluters another free pass.
[Brussels, November 5] – Earlier this year, 90 organisations warned that the European Commission’s proposal for the EU Climate Law risked becoming a “law for polluters” built on loopholes like carbon offsets and carbon removal credits, rather than a transition to a fossil fuels’ phase-out, which is key for achieving real zero emissions.
Those warnings have now been confirmed. After months of delay and political wrangling, a disastrous outcome has been agreed that falls far short of what science and climate justice require. This comes just five days before the UN COP30 climate negotiations start in Brazil, sending a troubling signal that the EU, whose members include some of the leading historical polluters, is trying to evade its responsibilities.
The new Climate Law sets a target for cutting emissions in the EU by just 85% by 2040, compared to 1990 levels — with a further 5% reduction to be outsourced abroad via carbon credits. Together, this adds up to the promised 90% target. But while that might sound ambitious, it actually sits at the very bottom of the range recommended by the EU’s own climate scientists. Worse still, the real issue lies in how the EU plans to reach it: through the same old “flexibilities” — corporate-friendly loopholes designed to avoid real change. These include allowing a significant share of emissions to be “compensated” by unproven carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies based on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) — an illusory fix that delays the phase-out of fossil fuels, risks locking Europe into dependence on polluting industries, and will cost EU taxpayers billions for little to no climate benefit.
The fact that the law mandates 5% of the total 90% target to be met through international carbon credits will open the floodgates to EU polluters purchasing hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 offset credits. This effectively outsources their responsibility to other countries for the climate crisis, while continuing to pollute (and profit) at home. This bluntly ignores and silences decades of evidence that buying offsets does not reduce emissions.
Meanwhile, the inclusion of a wide-ranging review clause for the 2040 target allows the EU’s climate commitments to be revised in the future, risking further dilution under political pressure or if they’re considered to be hurting industry’s “competitiveness”.
An EU Climate Law that puts polluting industries ahead of people and the climate undermines Europe’s previous climate ambitions and severely weakens its global standing ahead of COP30. Credible climate action cannot be built on promises of future removals or compensations, hijacking mainly Global South countries’ forests, grassland and other biodiverse areas with creative accounting. Real and just climate action requires immediate, verifiable, and equitable emission cuts at home, starting with a phase out of fossil fuels.
Rachel Kennerley, Senior Carbon Capture Campaigner at The Center for International Environmental Law, said:
“EU ministers have approved a 2040 climate target riddled with loopholes for big polluters. By allowing carbon offsets and encouraging speculative carbon removal instead of real emission cuts, Europe has caved to corporate and political pressure, weakening climate protections. Carbon offsets are ineffective, unjust, and dangerous distractions from real emissions cuts.
“By allowing up to 5% of emission cuts through international offsets, Europe is offshoring climate action—letting polluters dodge real cuts and avoid phasing out fossil fuels, while shifting the burden to those least responsible. International offsetting also threatens human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and fragile ecosystems. The agreement’s support for unproven and costly carbon removal technologies that introduce novel risks is deeply concerning, and diverts the EU further from real climate action.”
Joanna Cabello, Senior Climate Justice Researcher at The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), said:
“EU's new Climate Law has opened the door to a dangerous expansion of the offsets industry. This industry has consistently failed to cut emissions. After more than 25 years of false solutions, global emissions and fossil fuel production and consumption keep climbing, while communities in the Global South bear the social and environmental costs.
The EU must ensure emissions are reduced at home, instead of buying their way out of responsibility. Too many years have passed with offsets delaying real emission reductions and climate justice.”
Rachel Tansey, Researcher and Campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, said:
“The Council’s new deal on the Climate Law is chock full of get-out clauses that let polluters off the hook and pass Europe’s climate responsibility to other countries.
“These include bringing carbon removal credits, which are supposed to represent negative emissions, into the EU’s emission trading system for the first time. This means gambling our planet on risky, dangerous technofixes that claim to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere by combining destructive bioenergy or unproven direct air capture with the fossil fuel industry's favourite red herring, carbon capture and storage. All so that Big Polluters can carry on business-as-usual, resting on the fiction that their continued emissions will be balanced out.
“Meanwhile, a review clause that can weaken the 2040 target further if it is bad for industry’s “competitiveness” is a dangerous concession to the competiveness-before-people-and-planet mantra that has taken over the EU.”
Myriam Douo, Senior Campaigner at Oil Change International, said:
"By allowing carbon offsets and other schemes that have failed to deliver that may never actually materialise like Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) in its emission reductions target, the EU has opened Pandora's box. These loopholes will waste precious time and public money, delay the necessary just transition away from fossil fuels and give the fossil fuel industry cover to keep increasing emissions. Given the EU countries’ historical responsibility in the climate crisis, this is unacceptable."
Martin Pigeon, Forests & Climate campaigner with Fern, said:
“By relying on failed carbon offsets and unproven technology that cannot be scaled-up without further destroying ecosystems, EU countries have signalled that they no longer take climate action and science seriously. They have surrendered to short-term interests with plans that make no climatic or economic sense in the long run.”
For media inquiries, please contact:
Tiziano Biagi, Communications Coordinator at Real Zero Europe
tiziano@fern.orgtiziano@fern.org
