Lisbon, Aug. 21, 2025 (Lusa) - Several countries in the European Union (EU) are neglecting long-term climate planning, jeopardising targets, according to a report released on Thursday, which sets Portugal as a "good example" in planning.
The report was drawn up as part of the LIFE TogetherFor1.5 project and carried out by a consortium of European civil society organisations, including the Portuguese environmental association Zero, which released it in a statement today.
Called "Is the Long-Term Strategy process working? Evidence and recommendations from selected national cases", the document analysed the development or revision of long-term strategies in 10 countries, including Portugal.
Based on this work, gaps were identified, such as a general lack of ambition, weak public participation and poor alignment with other national climate plans, including the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs).
These gaps, the association said in its press release, jeopardise efforts to achieve climate neutrality by mid-century or earlier, and to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Of the 10 countries analysed, half had no plan to revise their long-term strategy. Then, in several cases, public consultation is either basic or doesn't exist at all, there is a lack of coordination between the various climate plans, or there is no link between long-term strategies and legally binding targets or intermediate objectives.
Portugal receives a more positive assessment in the document, highlighting that it had a participatory and transparent process in drawing up the Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality 2050 (RNC2050), which "is still relatively well aligned" with the 2030 targets and has already begun the process of revising it to align with the goals of the PNEC, which has since been revised.
Zero warned that the concrete implementation of the measures "remains very uncertain" and requires political reinforcement.
"Zero understands that Portugal is showing that it is possible to develop a climate strategy that is scientifically based, transparent and open to society, but it believes that planning is easy - it's implementing it that is difficult," it notes in the statement, in which it warns that the RNC2050 is not aligned with the 1.5ºC target of the Paris Agreement.
The association says that it is possible to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2040 and that this is beneficial for countries, allowing them, in the case of Portugal, to “save €16 billion”.
Zero also says that there is an urgent need for public consultation on the Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality 2045 (RNC2045), which reflects Portugal's commitment to bringing climate neutrality forward by five years.
And it warned that it is essential that, at a time of major rural fires, which emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide, "the roadmap answers the question of how to ensure in the long term that the carbon stored and captured in forests, scrubland and soils does not compromise the country's climate objectives in the face of the destruction of what is the main carbon sink".
The LIFE TogetherFor1.5 project, co-funded by the EU, aims to accelerate the EU's climate action and align it with the Paris Agreement's 1.5ºC objective (to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5ºC above the pre-industrial average). It is led by CAN Europe (Climate Action Network) and has organisations from 13 countries as partners.
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