The EU’s bizarre new climate change targets

In recent years, governments have increasingly opted to legislate to ensure they do the things they say they are going to do. In the UK, for example, the commitment to allocate 0.7 per cent of GDP to the international aid budget is legally binding, and in 2019 the UK became the first major economy to pass laws to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The peculiar aspect of these laws is that Parliament is still supreme, and so a future government can repeal any laws it finds inconvenient.

In reality, these legal targets have two effects. First, they help governments resist pressure from their backbenchers, for example when it comes to slashing international aid. Second, to a small extent they bind the hands of future governments by forcing them to have to publicly resile from these commitments. At least, however, future governments theoretically have the option to abandon their targets.