EU to Bolster Carbon Emissions Data as Green Shift Speeds Up

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union wants to create indicators to measure its transition away from fossil fuels and add them to its economic databases as the region changes gears in a fight with climate change.

“It is high time that our dashboards focus not only on GDP growth, public deficits or inflation but also on the green transition,” EU economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told a conference on sustainable investment in Brussels on Thursday.

The bloc will develop a set of statistics on the ambitious Green Deal strategy to monitor its progress on the way to its overarching goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gases by 2050, he said. That will include quarterly carbon emissions data, which now are published on an annual basis with a delay of around half a year. 

The EU wants to lead the fight against global warming, seeking to encourage other major emitters, including the U.S. and China, to follow suit. It is currently debating an unprecedented economic overhaul that will affect industries from transport to agriculture and manufacturing in a bid to reach a stricter goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.

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