The EU will stick to its goal to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2030 for the moment, and any decision to change that will not be taken till after 2020, the EU's climate action and energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said Monday.
The historic accord agreed in Paris over the weekend was the "first-ever truly global climate deal," Canete told reporters in Brussels.
It did not change, however, the EU's plans to spend the next few years putting the 2030 energy and climate goals agreed in 2014 by EU leaders into legislation, he said.
These goals are to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% on 1990 levels, to source at least 27% of final EU energy demand from renewables and to improve EU energy efficiency by at least 27% compared with energy demand projections.
"There will be a stocktaking exercise in 2018 with the IPPC to see what pathway we are on" to limit the global rise in temperature, Canete said.
The Paris accord calls for countries to aim to limit this rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The stocktaking will be an opportunity for countries to update their emissions ambitions, Canete said.
"From 2020 we can come along with more ambition -- but that will be for the next commission to decide. Additional commitments will need additional legislation," he said.
The EU's at least 40% emissions reduction target by 2030 is linked to its long-term goal to cut emissions by at least 80% on 1990 levels by 2050.
The mandate of the current EU commissioners ends in late 2019.
