By the EESC Workers' Group

The European Environmental Agency's (EEA) 2023 annual progress report was not particularly encouraging: the EU may not meet the majority of targets by 2030. In particular, prospects for the consumption footprint, consumption energy levels, circular production and organic farming are especially dire, although the rest - from biodiversity to climate change mitigation and adaptation - does not look any better.

As for the COP28 results, they offer little respite. As the debate at the EESC's December plenary showed, civil society is far from happy with the conclusions: the text is weak on how and who shall pay, and richer in words than in concrete action (despite for the first time singling out fossil fuels as being at the root of climate change). The target of limiting the rise of the global temperature average by the end of the century to 1.5 ° is unlikely to be met as that temperature increase will be reached most probably within five years. The warmest year on record was 2023, with every month since June being the warmest in record history.

This grim picture must not discourage us, but rather it should motivate us: action is needed. Now is not the time for timid good intentions (we have had plenty of those in the past, and look where we are now), or for a return to austerity measures. The principles of the Just Transition, with economic, social and environmental sustainability, must permeate each and every EU policy. And this must include, in line with the latest EESC opinion on the matter, adopting a directive for a Just Transition at EU level for the world of work: only if everyone is on board will the gigantic task ahead of us be doable. If the cost of it is passed on to the most vulnerable, as is so often the case already, far right populism will grow. By the time even they cannot deny the catastrophic effects of climate change, it will be too late.