The European Parliament has on Thursday approved a resolution declaring a climate and environmental emergency in Europe and globally. This comes ahead of the UN COP25 Climate Change Conference in Madrid which starts on Monday.

Parliament also want the Commission to ensure that all relevant legislative and budgetary proposals are fully aligned with the objective of limiting global warming to under 1.5 °C.

Parliament has also urged the EU, in a separate resolution to submit its strategy to reach climate neutrality as soon as possible, and by 2050 at the latest, to the UN Convention on Climate Change.

MEPs also call on the new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to include a 55% reduction target of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in the European Green Deal.

MEPs pointed out that current aviation and shipping ambitions fall short of the necessary emissions reductions.

“All countries should include emissions from international shipping and aviation in their national contributions plans (NDCs),” they say, and urge the Commission to propose that the maritime sector be included in the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).

EU countries should at least double their contributions to the international Green Climate Fund, Parliament says.

EU member states are the largest providers of public climate finance and the EU’s budget should fully comply with its international commitments, MEPs said. They also note that pledges by developed countries do not meet the collective goal of 100 billion USD per year as of 2020.

Finally, they urgently called on all EU countries to phase out all direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies by 2020.

The resolution on declaring a climate and environmental emergency was adopted with 429 votes for, 225 votes against and 19 abstentions.

The European Parliament adopted the resolution on COP25 with 430 votes for, 190 votes against and 34 abstentions.

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