Tomorrow’s State of the European Union address is a perfect opportunity for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to reveal the progress so far in the development of the new EU long-term climate strategy. Stating his support for reducing emissions to net zero at the latest by 2050 and keeping temperature rise to 1.5C would be an appropriate and timely response to the unprecedented heat waves and forest fires that we have witnessed over the summer and the multiple calls from non-state actors, Member States and the European Parliament to scale up the EU’s climate action.
Read more: Juncker’s State of the Union: what’s the plan for the climate?
Ahead of the next trilogue on the Electricity Market Design on 11 September, France, UK, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Ireland and Poland have just issued joint comments on the new rules regarding capacity mechanisms, which stand in stark contradiction to their commitment to fully implement the Paris Agreement.
Read more: Some Member States disturbingly back Poland in its struggle to keep coal alive
In a statement released today the EU and China reaffirm their unequivocal commitment to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and establish a closer partnership on climate action and the clean energy transition.
In May 2018 families from Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, Kenya, Fiji and the Swedish Saami Youth Association Sáminuorra sued the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union for the inadequate climate target for 2030. The lawsuit claims that the Union’s climate target fails to protect their human rights.
MEDIA ADVISORY
The Polish grid operator PSE conducted the general certification procedure earlier this week, thereby prequalifying electricity producers for capacity mechanism payments. The certification is an obligatory first step and conclusions sum up how much and what kind of capacities can take part in the bidding process for the first capacity payments within the Polish capacity market for the period 2021-2023. Whilst this certification does not spell out electricity producing technologies which will benefit, it does sum up eligible quantities for the payments and indicates proportions between different technologies.
Read more: Polish capacity market to crowd-out renewables and fund more coal