{"id":12053,"date":"2021-02-01T09:26:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T06:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=12053"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:24","slug":"can-the-eus-green-initiatives-overcome-their-internal-contradictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2021\/02\/01\/can-the-eus-green-initiatives-overcome-their-internal-contradictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the EU\u2019s green initiatives overcome their internal contradictions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The European Union\u2019s flagship climate policy vehicle, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/policies\/green-deal\/\">Green Deal<\/a>,\u00a0took another major step forward in December, with a new binding target for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. However, a little over a year after the original deal was first inked, the Green Deal is already accused of failing to ensure no one is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/f08b593c-5db3-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4\">left behind<\/a>\u201d. At the same time, debate over key pillars of EU environmental efforts continues to play out within the European institutions, with the European Parliament still\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/section\/energy-environment\/news\/eu-lawmakers-call-for-targets-to-reduce-raw-material-use\/\">developing its response<\/a>\u00a0to the Commission\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/environment\/circular-economy\/\">Circular Economy Action Plan<\/a>\u00a0and environmental groups pushing for increasingly stringent rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Europe\u2019s drive for carbon neutrality and sustainability will inevitably leave at least some businesses out of pocket, the list of industries currently affected by EU environmental initiatives include those with sustainable interests at heart. Alongside its new and more ambitious targets, will the Commission be able to ensure it fairly distributes the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/info\/strategy\/priorities-2019-2024\/european-green-deal\/actions-being-taken-eu\/just-transition-mechanism_en\">financial support and technical assistance<\/a>&nbsp;it offers to those most impacted by its dramatic moves towards a green EU? And is it willing to look beyond the headlines to support the sectors doing the heavy lifting on sustainable innovation? The track record thus far is not altogether encouraging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recharging the automotive sector<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sustainable mobility is one area underlined for investment by the EC, especially because the transport industry will have to reduce emissions by 90% to meet Green Deal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.driving.co.uk\/news\/environment\/eu-create-environmentally-friendly-electric-car-batteries\/\">targets<\/a>. The bloc\u2019s electric vehicles (EV) market is growing rapidly, with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2020\/dec\/03\/more-than-500000-full-electric-cars-sold-in-europe-in-10-months\">500,000<\/a>\u00a0vehicles sold in 2020. In November, these vehicles accounted for fully 80% of the overall automotive market in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2020\/12\/23\/ev-charging-stations-critical-as-european-ev-sales-fly-high\/\">Norway<\/a>. In Germany, the\u00a0<em>Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt<\/em>\u00a0(KBA) motor transportation authority found annual EV sales last year increased third times over. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sustainability-times.com\/green-consumerism\/can-the-european-unions-green-initiatives-overcome-their-internal-contradictions\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.sustainability-times.com\/green-consumerism\/can-the-european-unions-green-initiatives-overcome-their-internal-contradictions\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Union\u2019s flagship climate policy vehicle, the\u00a0Green Deal,\u00a0took another major step forward in December, with a new binding target for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}