EU ministers clinch deals on climate change laws

Cars with combustion engines are stored at a container terminal in Hamburg, Germany on March 18, 2022. MARTIN MEISSNER AP PHOTO LUXEMBOURG EU countries clinched deals on proposed laws to combat climate change early Wednesday, backing a 2035 phase-out of new fossil fuel car sales and a multibillion-euro fund to shield poorer citizens from CO 2 costs.

After more than 16 hours of negotiations, environment ministers from the 27 member states agreed on five laws, part of a broader package of measures to slash planet-warming emissions this decade.

The EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said that the Ukraine crisis involving top gas supplier Russia is spurring countries to quit fossil fuels because of the climate crisis and its consequences, and that policy is unavoidable.

Ministers supported the parts of the package that the European Commission proposed last summer, including a law that requires new cars sold in the EU to emit zero CO 2 by the year 2035. It would make it impossible to sell internal combustion engine cars.

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The proposal is likely to become EU law as a result of the deal. The ministers' agreements will form their position in the upcoming negotiations with the EU ParliamentEU Parliament on the final laws. The 2035 car target is already supported by the Parliament.

Italy, Slovakia and other states wanted the phase-out to be delayed to 2040. Countries eventually supported a compromise proposed by Germany, the EU's biggest car market, which kept the 2035 target and asked Brussels to assess in 2026 whether hybrid vehicles or CO2 neutral fuels could meet the goal.

Timmermans said that the commission would keep an open mind, but today hybrids did not deliver sufficient emissions cuts and alternative fuels were prohibitively expensive.

The goal is to make the 27 country EU the world's third biggest greenhouse gas emitter reaches its 2030 target of reducing net emissions by 55% from 1990 levels.

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Governments and industries will need to invest heavily in renewable energy, cleaner manufacturing and electric vehicles to invest heavily in the future.

Ministers backed a new EU carbon market to impose CO2 costs on polluting fuels used in transport and buildings, though they said it should launch in 2027, a year later than originally planned.

After a fraught negotiations, they agreed to form a 59 billion-euro EU fund to protect low-income citizens from the policy's costs over 2027 -- 2032.

Lithuania was the only country to oppose the final agreements, having unsuccessfully sought a bigger fund alongside Poland, Latvia and others who were concerned that the new CO 2 market could increase citizens' energy bills.

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Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands - wealthier countries that would pay more into the fund than they would get back -- had wanted it to be smaller.

Ministers supported reforms to the EU's current carbon market, which forces industry and power plants to pay when they pollute.

Countries accepted core elements of the Commission's proposal to reduce emissions by 61% by 2030, and extend it to cover shipping. They agreed on rules to make it easier for the EU to intervene in response to CO 2 price spikes.

Ministers backed two other laws to strengthen the national emissions-cutting targets that Brussels sets countries for some sectors, and increase natural carbon sinks like forests.

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