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Last-ditch €1bn call will rescue Horizon 2020 climate spending

Image: Alexandros Michailidis, via Shutterstock

Commission says EU R&D programme will beat spending target, after lagging it for years

The European Commission has said it is set to succeed with a last-ditch bid to get Horizon 2020, the EU R&D programme for 2014 to 2020, to recover from a persistent undershoot of its climate spending target.

Throughout its duration, Horizon 2020 severely lagged its target to allocate 35 per cent of its roughly €77 billion budget to climate-related activities. In mid-2017, the then EU R&D commissioner Carlos Moedas told the European Parliament it was “not good news” that the running allocation at that time was just 27 per cent.

“I don’t know if I can give an order, but at least I try to convince everybody that we have to solve this, and we have three years to do it,” he said.

The running allocation did inch closer to the target over the next few years, but by mid-2019 it was still far behind at just 29 per cent. Pressed again on the issue by the Parliament, the Commission seemed to back away from the target, saying climate spending would “need to be assessed in relation to other priorities, such as health and space”.

New leadership

Just months later, however, the five-yearly change of Commission leadership brought about a renewed emphasis on tackling climate change, including through the introduction of a European Green Deal package of climate policies.

In September 2020, the Commission launched its last and largest call under Horizon 2020—a Green Deal call worth a whopping €983 million.

And in its annual report on EU research activities, published earlier this week, the Commission said that although the running Horizon 2020 allocation to climate activities still stood at just 31 per cent at the end of 2020, “targeted action” including the Green Deal call “will eventually bring the climate expenditure above the 35 per cent threshold (to 36 per cent)”.

“The call closed on 27 January 2021, with more than 1,500 proposals submitted on the 20 thematic topics. It is expected that grants will be signed in the last quarter of 2021,” the Commission said. Topics included renewable energy technologies and protecting biodiversity.

New strategy

The Commission said in June that it has put in place “a new strategy for climate tracking climate action expenditure under Horizon Europe”, the successor programme to Horizon 2020, to avoid the need for similar last-ditch efforts to ensure that programme meets its own 35 per cent climate target.

It said this includes “setting clear top-down expectations for achieving the target throughout the different parts of Horizon Europe” and reviewing these plans in light of new evidence. The parts of Horizon Europe include challenge-based missions, with one mission specifically dedicated to climate action.