Should the government adhere to the EU’s climate rules?

In 2023 the European Union passed a number of climate laws which aimed to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions  to 55% below 1990 levels by 2030 and help the bloc of 27 countries comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Another rule includes hard-won banning the sale of new combustion engine cars by 2035. The Polish government pushed back against the rules by attempting to overthrow them in court. We don’t agree with this and other documents from the ‘Fit for 55’ package and we’re bringing this to the European Court of Justice. I hope other countrie…  s will join,” Polish climate and environment minister Anna Moskwa said back in June. In addition to the new car emission rules, Warsaw wants to overturn a recently agreed law on land use and forestry (LULUCF), scrap legislation updating 2030 emission reduction targets for EU countries and another one changing the number of pollution allowances in the EU’s carbon market stability reserve. The EU pushed back against the efforts. “The Commission maintains that the measures in question are fully compliant with EU Treaties and law,” the spokesperson argued, saying the Commission proposed these pieces of legislation in order to implement the European Climate Law, “which sets legally-binding emissions reduction targets of -55% by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050”. Opponents also argue that the Polish government’s case had little chance of succeeding, citing a legal precedent set a few years ago in which the EU Court of Justice rejected a similar lawsuit by Poland against the EU carbon market.