Projects in ex-colonies should count toward EU climate goal, Portugal says

BRUSSELS — Portugal wants to meet its share of the European Union’s climate target with green investments in its former colonies.

The demand comes as the European Commission prepares its proposal for a bloc-wide 2040 climate goal. Several governments already want the EU executive to let them count international carbon credits — regulated permits that pay for climate-friendly projects abroad — toward the new target.

Lisbon, however, is going one step further. 

Portuguese Environment Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho said the country should also get credit for planet-warming emission cuts that result from Portugal’s investments in renewable energy projects in Cabo Verde or São Tomé and Príncipe — the country’s former colonies. That should occur, she added, even if those projects are not regulated under the global carbon credit regime. 

“It’s very important for us that investments we do outside Europe can be counted for the [2040] target,” she told POLITICO in an interview in Brussels. “We have very good relations in terms of investments in renewables, mainly with Portuguese-speaking countries. … Every year we are investing between €12-14 million in Cabo Verde. We are now doing the same with São Tomé and Príncipe, so we want this also to be accounted for in the target.” 

Carvalho said that she would present this demand, alongside several others, to European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and fellow conservative environment ministers on Thursday. 

Hoekstra's headache

The string of Portuguese demands further complicates Hoekstra’s balancing act.

The commissioner has been holding talks with governments across the EU to build support for the 2040 emissions-reduction target, which the Commission wants to set at 90 percent below 1990 levels. So far, only a minority of countries are backing the target, and many say they can only consider supporting 90 percent if a number of conditions are met. 

In a separate interview with POLITICO on Thursday, Hoekstra declined to offer details on the talks with ministers. “There are several elements being discussed, floated, contemplated,” he said, but “in this phase I’m not going to publicly pick out elements to then say yes or no to.”

One of the options the Commission is exploring is the use of foreign carbon credits regulated under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. That would allow the EU to meet part of the 90 percent goal by counting some emissions-cutting projects abroad. Critics warn this could undermine the integrity of the bloc’s efforts, but several countries including Germany and France have endorsed the idea. 

Carvalho, however, insisted that not just “Article 6, but also investments in [other] projects should be valorized in these flexibilities that are going to be proposed by the Commission.” 

Her remark is likely to raise eyebrows in Brussels. The Article 6 regime was set up amid concerns that unregulated offsets were undermining efforts to cut global emissions, with many projects not actually resulting in reductions or being counted by two countries toward their targets. 

Wildfire exemption

The investment credits aren’t the only controversial demand Portugal is making. Carvalho also said Portugal should not be held accountable for emissions from wildfires within its borders. 

“We want special treatment for us and the countries that have large fires,” she said. “They are a consequence of climate change and we are in certain ways being penalized for the consequence of the climate change. … They should not be blamed on specific countries for these targets. It’s a consequence of climate change, it's something that is like world emissions, instead of being the emissions of Portugal, Cyprus or Greece.” 

Hotter temperatures make it easier for fires to spread, and Portugal is responsible for only a fraction of historical emissions — though its contribution to global warming triples when taking into account emissions in territories under Portuguese colonial rule. 

But Lisbon has been criticized for lax forest management and allowing easily flammable monocultures — such as eucalyptus plantations — to spread across the country. 

On top of carbon credit use, counting overseas projects and exempting wildfire pollution, Portugal also wants the Commission’s 2040 target to be “non-linear,” meaning that emission cuts occur at a slower pace in the first half of the 2030s before accelerating in the latter half. This would lead to higher total emissions over the decade. 

Carvalho said that if these conditions are met, Portugal would be “happy to” support a 90 percent target for 2040 — but only if Lisbon’s share of that target is actually lower. 

“A lot of our economic development was in the decade after 1990, so all that needs to be taken into account in the effort shared [among EU countries], and our target is going to be much lower than that, taking into consideration the conditions of the country,” she said. 

Hoekstra told POLITICO on Thursday he was “increasingly confident that we will be able to come up with an ambitious target that will also find a landing zone in the European Parliament and amongst member states before summer.”

That, however, was before he met with Carvalho.