Regulation 2019/2089 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 as regards EU Climate Transition Benchmarks, EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks and sustainability-related disclosures for benchmarks - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 317/17

On 25 September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted a new global sustainable development framework: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the ‘2030 Agenda’), which has at its core the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Commission Communication of 22 November 2016 on the next steps for a sustainable European future links the SDGs to the Union policy framework to ensure that all Union actions and policy initiatives, both within the Union and globally, take the SDGs on board at the outset. In its conclusions of 20 June 2017, the Council confirmed the commitment of the Union and its Member States to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in a full, coherent, comprehensive, integrated and effective manner and in close cooperation with partners and other stakeholders.

The Paris Agreement adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the ‘Paris Agreement’), which was approved by the Union on 5 October 2016 (3) and which entered into force on 4 November 2016, seeks to strengthen the response to climate change by, inter alia, making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

In order to reach the objectives of the Paris Agreement and significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, the global target is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1,5 °C above pre-industrial levels.

On 8 October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the Special Report on Global Warming of 1,5 °C, which stated that limiting global warming to 1,5 °C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes to all aspects of society, and that limiting global warming to 1,5 °C as compared to 2 °C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society.

Sustainability and the transition to a low-carbon, climate resilient, more resource-efficient and circular economy are crucial to ensuring the long-term competitiveness of the Union economy. Sustainability has long been central to the Union project, and the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) reflect its social and environmental dimensions. There is a limited window in which to transform the culture in the financial sector towards sustainability to ensure that the global average temperature rise stays well below 2 °C. It is therefore essential that new infrastructure investments are sustainable in the long term.

In its Communication of 8 March 2018, the Commission published its action plan on financing sustainable growth, launching an ambitious and comprehensive strategy on sustainable finance. One of the objectives of that action plan is to reorient capital flows towards sustainable investment in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth. A greater focus on...