October 11, 2022

SOLIDAR joins more than 35 social, environmental and industry organisations and calls on co-legislators to adopt a strong Social Climate Fund to tackle the energy and climate crises.

The EU has the tools to address the parallel social, climate and energy security crises, but it is failing to make the most of them. ETS revenues are higher than ever and yet analysis of revenue use suggests that Member States are not using them to boost climate action spending.

The proposal for a Social Climate Fund (SCF) is a central and vitally important pillar to build the resilience of European citizens against future crises in the mid to long term. At the same time, the SCF will help to drive the achievement of Europe’s social and climate goals – but only if it is big and bold enough.

We urge the SCF trilogue negotiators to recognise the central importance of the SCF for EU social, climate and energy security goals. They should ensure that the SCF enters into force as soon as possible, with an ambitious and resilient budget.

Ambitious social measures are needed to support vulnerable households and affected workers in order to ensure a just transition that is in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights. Climate change is already harming people’s health and living conditions. If nothing is done to mitigate it, its impacts will heavily burden future generations. Taking climate action requires ensuring pollution isn’t free and the polluter pays principle is applied throughout the EU’ economy in a socially fair manner.

Now is the moment that co-legislators must send a clear signal that they stand by Europe’s citizens as they seek to address the parallel challenges to achieve energy security, tackle rising energy prices and energy poverty, and to meet the EU’s climate commitments. Underlining and committing to a transformative, adequately resourced SCF is central to that.

Read the full Open letter via this link.