The EU agree to be carbon neutral by 2050

This is great news for the whole of Europe. It's too bad Poland was not in on the agreement, but let that take nothing away from the achievement.

"We have reached an agreement on climate change, it is very important, it was crucial, for Europe to show strong ambition" - EU Council President Charles Michel

This 2050 commitment was an important goal in following the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

So how has Europe decided to actually accomplish this? Well, the participating countries will need to cut their carbon emissions from fossil fuels and find other ways to offset their remaining emissions. This is still a bit vague on how they plan on actually accomplishing their missing, but at least its a big step in the right direction to figuring it out.

Why was Poland left out of the deal? Well since Poland gets 80% of it's energy from coal, it knew it was going to be a bumpy economic ride going forward if you can't burn that coal. Since Poland would be most affected by the deal, the other EU countries decided Poland would get a deal to be exempt from the 2050 goal despite the bloc countries providing funding to meet the targets.

Angela Merkel told reporters "There is no division of Europe into different parts, but there is a member state that still needs a bit more time."

We'll be waiting to see more details about the plan to get all of Europe inline to slow to 1.5 - 2 degrees C pre-industrial target.