The European Commission presents the European Green Deal: climate neutrality by 2050

On 11 December 2019 the European Commission presented the European Green Deal (Communication COM(2019) 640) — a plan to transform the Union into a climate-neutral economy by 2050. For the biogas, waste and agriculture sectors, this is the document that set the direction of regulation for the whole following decade.

What the communication contains

The Green Deal is a roadmap with more than fifty actions. The Commission assumed that the EU economy should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and that economic growth should be decoupled from resource use. The document announces further steps in areas that directly concern our compendium:

• a European climate law, which will write the 2050 goal into binding legislation;
• a new action plan for the circular economy, covering, among other things, waste and the reuse of materials;
• the "Farm to Fork" strategy for a sustainable food system, including fertilisation and livestock production;
• a biodiversity strategy for 2030;
• decarbonisation of the energy sector, including the development of decarbonised gases and sector integration.

The Commission also announced that, after an impact assessment, it would present a plan to raise the 2030 emission reduction target from the current 40% to 50–55% compared with 1990.

Significance for biogas plants and biomethane

The Green Deal did not yet introduce specific rules for biogas, but it changed the rules of the game. Higher climate ambitions mean higher prices of CO₂ emission allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), and therefore a better position for renewable fuels relative to fossil ones. For agriculture — and thus for agricultural biogas plants and the digestate cycle — the announced limits on methane and ammonia emissions and new fertilisation rules are important. For municipal waste and biowaste, the announcement of a new circular economy action plan meant a further impulse for separate collection and biological treatment.

How to read this document

The communication contains no figures for individual technologies. It is a set of directions and deadlines: the Commission declares which legislative proposals and strategies it will present and when. From an editorial point of view this is an important distinction — in the following months we separate what has merely been announced from what has become binding law. The communication also covers the financial aspect: an announcement of mobilising at least one trillion euro of investment over the decade, which we write about in connection with the investment plan of January 2020.

What next

After the communication came deadlines that set the schedule of legislative work for 2020: a proposal for the climate law in March, the circular economy action plan in March, agricultural strategies in May, the hydrogen and energy system integration strategies in July, and the methane strategy in October. We discuss each of these documents in subsequent entries.

It is worth remembering that the Green Deal in itself imposes no obligations on investors or farmers. They will feel its effects only when the announcements turn into regulations, tariffs and grant programmes — which is why it is most important to track which legal acts will directly affect biogas production and waste management.