According to a new report from the European Court of Auditors, the European Union has missed its own target of spending at least 20% of its budget on climate action in the 2014-2020 budget period. In reality, climate-relevant expenditure was about 13 percent, even though the Commission has stated that the target level of ambition has been achieved. In this way, climate spending was overestimated by at least EUR 72 billion.
During their review, the Court’s auditors found that the reported expenditure may have been incurred, but did not necessarily fall under the heading of climate action.
Instead of EUR 216 billion, the EU spent a maximum of EUR 144 billion on climate policy under the multi-year budget.
Climate spending is overestimated, especially in the financing of agricultural policy: almost 60 billion euros†
Because the shortcomings in the reporting are so great, the Court generally calls them unreliable† In some cases, expenditure is considered to be climate-relevant, but the projects it supports have little or no impact on the climate.
This concerns, for example, infrastructure in rural areas. In other cases, possible negative effects, such as carbon emissions, are not taken into account.
“Tackling climate change is a top priority for the EU, which has set itself ambitious climate and energy targets,” said Joëlle Elvinger, who led the study for de Rekenamer. “We make a number of recommendations to better link EU spending to its climate and energy targets. For example, we recommend that the Commission the climate relevance of agricultural finance must substantiate.”
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