Changes from resolution motion to adopted text

114. Considers that becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 at the latest, while increasing our competitiveness will require deep industrial transformation and adaptation in most sectors; believes that massive investment will be needed to support the energy system transformation, taking into account the diverse starting points of the Member States; calls for the EU to consider better aligning the financial framework with the Paris Agreement;

115. Stresses that the EU should do its utmost to maintain the leading position and global competitiveness of its industries and SMEs in the transition towards a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy; highlights the need for innovative policies to regain, maintain and expand the areas of EU leadership;

116. Emphasises that industries and SMEs are experiencing substantial transformation towards a net-zero economy; underlines the need to provide appropriate tools and support for the transition phase, while fostering innovation and ensuring competitiveness; recalls that SMEs must be supported and incentivised in this transition by legislators, in particular by ensuring access to finance for sustainable technologies, services and processes, by simplifying administrative procedures and by providing equal opportunities in public procurement;

117. Underlines the need to swiftly decarbonise the European industry further, while strengthening its competitiveness, and to maintain EU support for this endeavour; recalls, in this regard, the adoption of the Net-Zero Industry Act and notes the announcement of a future Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act and a new Clean Industrial Deal, aimed at channelling investments in infrastructure and industry, in particular for energy-intensive sectors, and supporting lead markets in the development, production and diffusion of clean tech in industry; believes that the EU Innovation Fund should further support the scaling-up of clean and innovative technologies and their supply chains;

118. Emphasises that carbon management can play a role in mitigating process emissions in hard-to-abate industries and in reducing unavoidable emissions; notes, in this context, the recent industrial carbon management strategy, which seeks to develop an EU action plan to increase the capture, storage, transport and use of CO2 emissions from industrial and energy production facilities, and to remove CO2 from the atmosphere;

119. Highlights the need for adequate financial resources to support the transition under the next multiannual financial framework, including through specific funding instruments that effectively address the financing needs of European industries;

120. Recognises the essential role of SMEs, in particular micro-enterprises and start-ups, in driving and delivering on innovation, employment and growth, and in leading the way on the digital and green transitions through innovation and cutting-edge technological solutions; stresses that SMEs need clear, consistent and predictable legislation in order to grow and create jobs; highlights the specific barriers that such companies have to face to access financial instruments and public and private capital;

121. Emphasises the need to promote competitive markets of commodities and rare metals that are essential for the green transition; highlights that continued dependency on a few suppliers affects the EU’s industry negatively and calls for a diversification of suppliers; welcomes, in this regard, the adoption of the Critical Raw Materials Act and the intention of the Commission to propose a new Circular Economy Act; highlights the crucial importance of a circular economy to achieve the highest resource efficiency and independency regarding critical raw materials; points to the need to improve international supplies, including via the upcoming Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships, while ensuring that the same social, environmental and human rights standards as those in the EU are applied;

122. Highlights the need for specific qualification programmes, including reskilling and upskilling programmes that are essential to reinforce the workforce and meet the increasing demand of labour in clean and innovative technologies, energy efficiency, renewables, building renovations and energy storage; notes, in this regard, the importance of the Net-Zero Academies; emphasises the need to invest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in order to meet the requirements of the job market, and to foster the EU’s innovation potential; highlights the importance of consulting all social partners in mapping skills shortages and designing the policy toolbox to address them;

Energy policy

123. Notes, with concern, that fossil fuel subsidies have skyrocketed globally in recent years; regrets the fact that fossil fuel subsidies in the EU have remained stable since 2008, at around EUR 55-58 billion per year, and increased to EUR 123 billion in 2022; notes, in this respect, that current investment trends are not aligned with the levels necessary for the world to achieve the goals agreed at COP28 to triple renewable capacity and to double the rate of improvements in energy efficiency, and that a doubling of current annual spending on renewable power generation, grids and storage in 2030 is necessary;

124. Underlines the unused potential of geothermal energy to make a significant contribution to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement and of the EU’s energy policy; encourages Parties to share best practices, technological know-how and results of research and innovation on geothermal technologies;

125. Recalls the energy aspects of the outcome of the first global stocktake under the UAE Consensus, in particular the transition away from fossil fuels so as to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in keeping with the science, tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, and the call to accelerate implementation and investments in clean, sustainable, safe and energy-efficient technologies and systems; calls for continuous assessment of the progress made in reaching these targets;

126. Notes the desirability of establishing a complementary global goal of a six-fold increase in energy storage in the power sector to 1 500 GW and more broadly increasing system flexibility by 2030, in line with the targets agreed by G7 energy ministers in April 2024; emphasises the need to pay more attention to technological solutions aimed at reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere;

127. Highlights the importance of a global reduction in methane emissions in the fossil fuel supply chains during the transition to clean energy systems in order to achieve the global reduction level of 75 %in methane emissions by 2030, as reflected in the IEA’s Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario; calls on the Global Methane Pledge signatories to accelerate action to abate methane emissions by 2030; notes that the Methane Regulation introduces global monitoring tools to increase the transparency of methane emissions from imports of oil, gas and coal into the EU and to ensure a level playing field across EU and non-EU operators, while taking into account security of supply;

128. Highlights that climate change and extreme weather events are having an increasingly serious impact on our energy systems, including the production of hydropower, bioenergy yields, the efficiency of thermal power plants, and heating and cooling demands; notes that renewable energies may often have variable production levels, emphasising the need to develop storage capacities;

129. Underlines the in-depth revision of the EU’s energy legislation under the ‘Fit for 55’ package, which has aligned it to the EU’s increased GHG emissions reduction target of at least 55 % by 2030 in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest; emphasises that achieving our climate and energy targets depends on the effective implementation of the ‘Fit for 55’ package; considers that other parties should undertake similar and relevant efforts with the encouragement of and in cooperation with the EU;

130. Calls for the announced Clean Industrial Deal to ensure the competitiveness of industries and enhance quality jobs with sector-specific and cross-sector measures by delivering on simplifying, investing in and ensuring access to affordable, sustainable and secure energy supplies and raw materials, in partnership with industry, social partners, financial institutions and all stakeholders, in order to support our industries on their journey towards a climate-neutral future with a business case;

131. Highlights the central role of energy efficiency, renewables, a diversified energy system and low-carbon energy sources in the transition towards a climate-neutral economy; acknowledges however the importance, as the EU has done under the ‘Fit for 55’ package, of aligning renewable energy and energy efficiency policies and measures in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest and to comply with the Paris Agreement, seizing the opportunity of the current decline in the cost of renewable energy and energy storage technologies; welcomes, in this regard, the adoption of the urgent and targeted reform of the electricity market design that aims to contribute, inter alia, to boosting renewables generation, to empower and protect consumers, and to make the energy bills of consumers and businesses less dependent on short-term price fluctuations;

132. Recalls the Union’s commitment to the energy efficiency first principle, which takes into account cost efficiency, system efficiency, storage capacity, demand-side flexibility and security of supply;

133. Stresses the need for significant public and private investments in the EU’s energy grid and related infrastructure to allow for their modernisation and expansion and the further flexible integration of renewable energy sources, efficiency measures and storage solutions to provide clean, sufficient, secure and affordable energy for our citizens and industry; underlines, in particular, the need to upgrade the EU’s electricity network to accommodate substantial increases in renewable capacity, variability in generation, changing electricity flow patterns across Europe and new demands; recalls the importance of removing barriers, including complexities in permitting processes for electricity infrastructure, to further integrate the energy systems of Member States, which will increase the Union’s potential for clean energy production, and of driving the roll-out of interconnections; underlines the need for Member States to meet the 15 % electricity interconnection target by 2030;

134. Stresses that achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest will require coordinated global actions and that developing countries will require international assistance in order to achieve their green transitions; stresses the importance of enhancing close cross-border cooperation and the sharing of best practices with international partners in the fields of policymaking and science and technology transfer;

135. Stresses that partnerships with non-EU countries on external dimensions of energy policies must be fostered; notes the EU’s efforts to build energy alliances with a sustainable development perspective;

136. Notes the declaration launched at COP28, by more than 20 countries, including 12 EU Member States and Ukraine, to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050;

137. Highlights the central role that citizens and local communities have to play in a successful global energy transition and the specific barriers that they have to face to access financial instruments and public and private capital; underlines the importance of EU legislation, which sets the framework for them to produce, self-consume, store and sell their renewable energy and offer demand-response and energy efficiency services to citizens, among other entities; stresses that EU legislative acquis is a transferable good practice for international partners seeking to speed up their ecological transition in a socially fair and democratic way;

Research, innovation, digital technologies and space policy

138. Welcomes the role of the Copernicus programme and the new EU Knowledge Centre on Earth Observation in land, atmosphere and marine environmental monitoring; underlines the importance of satellite observation capacities to monitor, model, predict and support policymaking on climate change, including monitoring methane emissions, super-emitting events and carbon sinks; stresses the need to promote joint research programmes to develop technologies and infrastructure that address both space and climate protection; highlights the importance of public-private partnerships to promote cooperation between government and commercial space agencies; underlines the need to achieve true EU strategic autonomy in the satellite domain, and to further invest in the space economy;

139. Recalls the importance of the contribution of research and innovation to achieving the goals set out in the Paris Agreement and the objectives of the European Green Deal; underlines that the vast majority of research and innovation needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 still lies ahead of us; regrets the fact that the EU has still not delivered on its long-standing objective of annually investing 3 % of GDP in research and development ,and calls for new approaches to boosting industrial research and development spending;

140. Welcomes, particularly in this regard, the role that Horizon Europe and its partnerships, such as the Joint Undertakings and the Knowledge and Innovation Communities of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, play in fostering collaboration between the public and private sectors, with the goal of contributing to achieving climate neutrality and the green transition, while ensuring that innovations are sustainable, available, accessible and affordable to all;

141. Highlights the need to attract more investment, both public and private, in research, innovation and the deployment of new sustainable technologies, including in labour-intensive industries, and in the upgrade of existing and, where necessary, new infrastructure networks and projects that contribute to the goals of the European Green Deal and the Paris Agreement;

142. Underlines the importance of ensuring the coherence and consistency of incentives to foster clean and innovative technologies to achieve the 2030 and 2050 targets, addressing the deployment of already mature technologies and investments in new technologies that may need to be developed to reach the Union’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest;

143. Stresses that the EU must collaborate on research on technology, industry and innovative science to help make important contributions to the Paris Agreement; calls for the announced strategy for European Life Sciences to be implemented; calls on the Commission to foster strategic research partnerships to enable a level playing field in Europe;

144. Underlines that digitalisation is one of the key factors driving energy system integration as it can enable dynamic and interlinked flows of energy carriers, allow for more diverse markets to be interconnected and provide the necessary data to match supply and demand and optimise network management; highlights the potential of digital technologies in increasing energy efficiency and thus reducing overall GHG emissions, while acknowledging the urgent need to adopt sustainable practices to minimise the increasingly high carbon and resource footprint of digitalisation and of the information and communications technology sector, in particular data centres and other computing infrastructure; recalls the EU’s objective to make data centres climate-neutral and highly energy efficient by no later than 2030, in line with its digital strategy;

Role of the European Parliament at COP29

145. Believes that Parliament should be an integral part of the EU delegation at COP29, given that it must give its consent to international agreements and plays a central role in the domestic implementation of the Paris Agreement as one of the EU’s co-legislators; expects, therefore, to be allowed to attend EU coordination meetings at COP29 in Baku and to be guaranteed access to all preparatory documents; commits to acting independently and free from conflicts of interest;

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146. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the request that it be circulated to all non-EU Parties to the Convention.