Climate KIC responds to consultation on Long-Term Strategy for EU GHG emissions reduction

As an active member of the community working to solve challenges presented by climate change, Climate KIC has submitted a response to the European Commission consultation on the Long-Term Strategy for EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction.

For the EU long-term GHG emissions reduction strategy, Climate KIC believes:

• The EU should take a leadership role and demonstrate increased ambition towards achieving net zero-emissions, targeting a date much faster than 2050, and coherent with the Paris Agreement aim of 1.5°C.
• To achieve the speed and scale of decarbonisation now needed, the EU approach cannot be based on step-by-step incremental improvements, but rather must help trigger systemic change for decarbonisation. The EU long-term GHG emissions reduction strategy must create a much bolder vision for change in order to unlock the kind of mobilising environment and ‘call to arms’ that European actors need to accelerate innovation and transformation.
• Systemic innovation is one way to do this. The EU long-term GHG emissions reduction strategy should be deliberately designed to encourage and enable a more cross-cutting systemic approach. This means focusing innovation around multiple drivers of change simultaneously: not only technological innovation but also innovation in citizen engagement, behaviours and skills, finance, business models and policy.
• The transformation needs to happen across systems that are ‘harder’ to decarbonise – in cities, production, land-use and finance.
• Efforts need to focus both on mitigation and adaptation measures, at the same time as placing well-being and equality at the heart of the transformation.

Conclusions to the position paper state that “The substantial gap between our current efforts and the reality of where we need to be is where we find Europe’s innovation challenge.” Commenting on Europe’s role in world leadership on climate action Climate KIC believe that “to achieve long-term GHG emission reductions, Europe needs to position itself at the forefront of systems innovation in these areas.”

Clarifying where the public-private partnership’s role fits within the context of the long-term strategy, it said: “to drive long-term change, Europe needs to consider not only technological solutions, but also innovation in the financial system, policy and regulatory frameworks, citizen engagement, and new business models.”

You can read the full paper here.