EDP wants to reduce emissions by 90% until 2030
In 2019, EDP's specific CO2 emissions were 216 thousand tons CO2/MWh. The polluting gases from the burning of fossil fuels reached 14.4 million tons of CO2 last year.
EDP announced on Friday new targets for decarbonization until 2030: the company maintains the same reduction in 90% of its CO2 emissions until 2030, but now compared to more recent levels, from 2015. The previous goal compared with the indicators of 2005, ten years before, when the company’s emissions were higher (almost double), because of the strong predominance of fossil energies.
That is, the previous target dictated that EDP would go from emitting 628 thousand tons of CO2 per MWh in 2005 to 62 thousand tons of CO2 per MWh in 2030. Now, the assumed goal is to reduce from 340 thousand tons of CO2 per MWh in 2015 to 34 thousand tons of CO2/MWh in a decade.
As far as specific CO2 emissions are concerned, a reduction from 257 thousand tons of CO2/MWh in 2018 to 216 thousand tons of CO2/MWh in 2019 has been observed, largely due to the preference given to natural gas. The aim is to reduce these emissions by 65% in 2022, 85% in 2025 and 90% by 2030, supported by the decommissioning of the coal power plants and the growth in renewables, reveals EDP’s Sustainability Report.
The most recent review of EDP’s sustainability goals has already been endorsed by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an organization that evaluates and approves companies’ initiatives for a low carbon economy and fighting climate change. SBTi attests that the company’s objective is aligned with the path defined by the science of limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5ºC.
“This new goal represents a significant advance in EDP’s decarbonization commitments, sustained by the decision to anticipate the closure of coal-fired power stations in the Iberian Peninsula and by the continuous growth of production from renewable energies. In the same period, EDP will also reduce its indirect emissions by 40% from CO2,” the company said in a statement.
EDP wants to “contribute to the decarbonization of the electricity sector and to the electrification of the remaining sectors and reinforces the ambition to lead this transition, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.”
