The EU’s 2040 CO₂ target: a destructive crusade of control, taxation, and authoritarian hypocrisy
The European Union has once again revealed its authoritarian ambitions under the guise of environmental protection. Its latest goal, a 90% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, is nothing less than a political crusade that forces ordinary Europeans into poverty, restricts freedoms, and creates a permanent dependency on the state. Senior EU officials present this as a moral necessity to prevent “climate catastrophe”, but in reality, it is a deeply flawed and dangerous agenda, based not on scientific consensus, but on ideological fanaticism.
The real-world impact will not be felt by the ruling elite, but by ordinary citizens, small business owners, farmers, and families who will see their energy bills soar, mobility restricted, and livelihoods destroyed. Meanwhile, the very people pushing these measures, politicians, green energy investors, and globalist NGOs, grow richer and more powerful. This is not environmental protection. This is state control, wealth transfer, and elite self-enrichment, all wrapped in green propaganda.
The human cost of an impossible target
Targeting European citizens, not global polluters
The EU’s plan ignores the global picture. China alone emits more than 30% of global CO₂ emissions, dwarfing the EU’s less than 7% share (Global Carbon Budget 2023, Friedlingstein et al.). And yet, instead of pressuring China or India to reduce emissions, the EU forces its own people to sacrifice their living standards.
Ordinary Europeans will face:
- Soaring energy costs, caused by the forced shutdown of fossil fuel plants before reliable alternatives are in place.
- Punitive carbon taxes on heating, driving, and flying, making everyday life unaffordable.
- Mandatory home renovations, costing tens of thousands of euros for heat pumps, insulation, and other forced upgrades (Renovation Wave Strategy, European Commission).
- Destruction of agriculture, particularly livestock farming, accused of producing methane, even though its emissions are minimal compared to industrial polluters.
- Bans on affordable cars, coercing people into buying expensive electric vehicles that rely on rare earth mining from authoritarian regimes like China.
At the same time, industries are shutting down or relocating to Asia where environmental laws are weaker. This process, known as carbon leakage, means the EU’s measures do not even reduce global emissions, they merely export them abroad while destroying European jobs (Europe’s Climate Suicide, Bjorn Lomborg).
The reality of energy poverty
These policies are already creating an energy crisis. In 2022 and 2023, millions of Europeans faced energy poverty, unable to heat their homes affordably (Energy Poverty Observatory, EU Commission). Instead of addressing this suffering, the EU tightens the noose, pretending that subsidies and “climate funds” will make up for the hardship they deliberately caused.
A crisis turned into a cash cow
Climate policies as tax schemes
The EU’s climate agenda is a financial racket. Mechanisms like the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the new ETS2, which extends carbon pricing to buildings and transport, are designed to extract billions from the economy (ETS2 Impact Assessment, European Commission). These are not taxes in name, but they function exactly like them, hitting working people the hardest.
The EU pretends this revenue will help the poor through the Social Climate Fund, but in reality, it creates new layers of bureaucracy, inefficient redistribution, and endless waste (Social Climate Fund Proposal, EU Commission).
The profiteers of the climate industry
Behind the rhetoric lies a network of profiteers:
- Investment banks and asset managers, like BlackRock, making billions through green bonds and ESG funds.
- Multinational energy firms, receiving enormous subsidies for unreliable wind and solar projects.
- EU officials and their families, many of whom have ties to green lobbying firms and consultancies.
One example is Ursula von der Leyen, whose family has documented ties to green lobbying and energy interests (Von der Leyen family ties to green lobby, Politico). These people are not environmentalists. They are opportunists, turning climate hysteria into wealth and power.
Wopke Hoekstra: the climate commissioner of corporate hypocrisy
A career serving corporations, not citizens
Wopke Hoekstra, appointed as EU Climate Commissioner in 2023, is the perfect example of hypocrisy in Brussels. Hoekstra spent much of his career at McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm infamous for working with oil giants, pharmaceutical multinationals, and authoritarian regimes (How McKinsey Drives the Climate Crisis, The Guardian). McKinsey has been deeply involved in advising fossil fuel companies on maximizing profits while publicly promoting greenwashing strategies.
When Hoekstra later served as Dutch finance minister, he was criticized for protecting large corporations, opposing wealth taxes, and downplaying climate urgency. Yet now, as Climate Commissioner, he has reinvented himself as a radical eco-warrior, pushing aggressive CO₂ cuts and carbon taxes.
This sudden transformation raises serious questions about his motives. Is he a true believer? Or is he positioning himself for a lucrative future role in the climate-industrial complex, where ex-politicians earn fortunes from the very policies they implemented? His background suggests the latter.
Pushing policies he will not suffer from
Hoekstra’s proposals, like the expansion of carbon taxes on home heating and car fuel, will devastate low and middle-income Europeans, but leave wealthy elites like himself untouched. He lives in luxury, travels by taxpayer-funded limousines and planes, and will never face the hardships his policies impose on others.
Parallels with communism: controlling lives through scarcity
The EU’s climate ideology resembles Soviet-style communism, where ideology overruled reality:
| Communist systems | EU climate agenda |
|---|---|
| Centralized economic planning | Brussels dictating energy, transport, and farming policy |
| Crushing private initiative | Destroying farmers, car owners, and small businesses |
| Propaganda and censorship | Climate fearmongering in schools and media |
| Redistribution through force | Climate taxes disguised as redistribution |
| Suppressing dissent | Labeling critics as “climate deniers” |
| Utopian goals used to justify poverty | “Saving the planet” used to justify energy poverty |
Instead of creating prosperity, the EU’s policies destroy it, replacing affordable energy and free markets with state-controlled scarcity, where people are forced to beg for subsidies to survive. This is economic enslavement, not environmental protection.
Harm to society
The cruelty of these policies is no accident. EU officials seem to know what they are doing:
- They know their measures will cause energy poverty, job losses, and inflation.
- They know these sacrifices will not stop global emissions, because the real problem lies outside Europe.
- They know ordinary people cannot afford €50,000 electric cars or €30,000 home renovations.
But they do it anyway. Because for them, this seems to be about power and legacy, not human well-being. The hardship of millions is deemed to be an acceptable price for their ideological success.
A fabricated problem inflated for power
Climate change is real, but the EU’s apocalyptic narrative is exaggerated beyond all scientific justification:
- CO₂ is not a pollutant, but the gas of life. Plants absorb it, and it is essential for food production.
- Earth’s climate has naturally warmed and cooled over centuries without human intervention (Climate, History and the Modern World, H.H. Lamb).
- IPCC data shows no conclusive increase in global extreme weather events, despite decades of rising CO₂ (IPCC AR6 Report).
- Even if the EU cuts emissions to zero, global CO₂ levels will be driven by China, India, and the US.
The EU’s climate agenda is not about solving a problem, it is about creating a crisis big enough to justify permanent state control, surveillance, and taxation.
Conclusion: reject the climate tyranny before it is too late
The EU’s 2040 CO₂ reduction target is not a noble effort to protect the environment. It is a totalitarian power grab, designed to impoverish the middle class, enrich political elites, and centralize control in Brussels.
Europeans are being forced to fund their own oppression through endless taxes, inflated energy prices, and technological mandates they neither want nor can afford. Meanwhile, the planet will barely notice the EU’s sacrifice, as global emissions continue to rise elsewhere.
This is not environmental protection, it is climate communism, economic sabotage dressed up as moral virtue. If Europeans do not resist now, they will find themselves living in a continent of declining prosperity, rising authoritarianism, and disappearing freedoms.
References
- Global Carbon Budget 2023, Friedlingstein et al.
- Europe’s Climate Suicide, Bjorn Lomborg
- ETS2 Impact Assessment, European Commission
- Social Climate Fund Proposal, EU Commission
- Von der Leyen family ties to green lobby, Politico
- How McKinsey Drives the Climate Crisis, The Guardian
- Renovation Wave Strategy, European Commission
- Energy Poverty Observatory, EU Commission
- Climate, History and the Modern World, H.H. Lamb
- The Totalitarian Temptation, Jean-François Revel
- IPCC AR6 Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
