EFTA Surveillance Authority

10/27/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/27/2021 08:11

ESA publishes report on progress made by Iceland and Norway towards reaching their climate goals

The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) has today published its first annual report on progress made by Iceland and Norway towards reaching their climate goals.

Iceland, Norway and the European Union in 2019 agreed to deepen their cooperation on mitigating the effects of climate change. As part of this agreement, two EU climate acts were incorporated into the EEA Agreement, and thereby apply to Iceland and Norway: The Effort Sharing Regulation, and the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation.

The climate goals were made binding on 11 March 2020, when the new legal acts entered into force. The acts set binding reduction targets on greenhouse gas emissions for Iceland, Norway and the EU Member States.

ESA is responsible for ensuring that Iceland and Norway meet their climate commitments as part of a Europe-wide effort to significantly reduce carbon-emissions by 2030. This means that ESA will publish an assessment every October on progress made by the two countries in meeting their goals under the Effort Sharing Regulation and the LULUCF Regulation.

The Effort Sharing Regulation outlines the maximum levels Iceland and Norway can emit each year in a range of sectors not covered by the Emissions Trading System, including transport, building, waste management, agriculture, industry (non-ETS), as well as land and forestry activities. It translates the 2030 reduction targets into binding annual emissions targets for the 2021-2030 period for Iceland and Norway. You can read more about the annual emission targets, adopted by ESA in July 2021, here.

The LULUCF Regulation requires that greenhouse gas emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry are balanced by at least an equivalent removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the 2021-2030 period (the no-debit rule). ESA in December 2020 adopted green forest-management benchmarks for Iceland and Norway, which you can read more about here.

The report published today describes the tangible efforts made by Iceland and Norway towards meeting their climate targets since the compliance period started on 1 January 2021.

Download and read ESA's report here.