How is Europe mitigating climate change?

European countries have developed strategies, policies and measures to mitigate climate change and prevent the worst of its impacts from taking place. These include developing targets for greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions in key sectors; promoting renewable energy and low-carbon fuel use; or improving the energy efficiency of buildings and industrial processes.

Key messages

In 2025, Member States reported their national climate and energy policies and measures. A total of 3,519 policies and measures were reported, covering the category 'Decarbonisation: GHG emissions and removals' and 'Decarbonisation: renewable energy' and other relevant categories.
According to Member States’ reporting, the number of national policies and measures to reduce GHG emissions increased by 16% between 2023 and 2025. Most policies and measures were reported in relation to the category ‘Decarbonisation: GHG emissions and removals’ (82%), and are in the planning stage.
Most climate change mitigation measures reported in 2025 are economic instruments (e.g. subsidies or feed-in tariffs) or regulations (e.g. energy efficiency standards) primarily targeting energy and transport-related GHG emissions.
Reporting on quantitative information remains low — meaning that the emissions savings that policies and measures can achieve is either not known or not reported — especially on the GHG emission savings achieved by implemented measures (known as ex-post savings). In addition, quantified information on the costs and benefits of policies and measures, and of indicators to monitor the effectiveness of policies and measures to mitigate against climate change, is low. The volume of reporting remained relatively stable in 2025 compared with 2023, with minor improvements in the volume of data reported on projected (known as ex-ante) GHG emission savings.

The European countries (the EU-27 plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) have altogether reported more than 3,700 single policies and measures designed to help achieve climate change mitigation and energy targets. These include reducing GHG emissions, producing additional renewable energy or reducing overall energy consumption.

Explore our data on policies and measures

The number of integrated national policies and measures increased by 16% between 2023 and 2025

According to the EEA’s latest analysis, existing policies and measures (policies and measures that have already been adopted or implemented) are expected to achieve a 47% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. If all the reported planned policies and measures are implemented, the total net reduction could increase to almost 54%, bringing the EU close to its 55% target for 2030. While this indicates that the EU is broadly on track, sustained focus and effort are needed, particularly in areas of key concern, to ensure the target is fully achieved.

Number of single existing and planned policies and measures reported by Member States in different reporting years

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Note: Existing policies and measures include those with an implementation status of expired, implemented and adopted. 2025 data for Belgium are based on 2023 reporting.

Consult the latest European Topic Centre on Climate Change Mitigation report, Overview of reported integrated national climate and energy policies and measures in Europe in 2025, for a complete analysis of national efforts to reduce GHG emissions, increase renewable energy production or reduce overall energy consumption.

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The EEA's contribution

Supporting policy evaluation

Information reported by European countries on their climate and energy policies is used to monitor climate action at a national level. It can also serve to assess and evaluate existing policies, and help to inform decisions about new ones.

The briefing 'Using Member States’ information on policies and measures to support policymaking: energy efficiency in buildings’ illustrates how databases on policies and measures can support policy evaluation. It does this by presenting the results of two case studies analysing policies and measures targeting energy efficiency in buildings.

The ETC/CME report ‘Agricultural climate mitigation policies and measures. Good practice, challenges, and future perspectives’ explores the agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation policies and measures implemented and planned by countries. It covers why they have not effectively reduced overall emissions in recent years, and what further action is needed to help meet EU emissions targets.

The EEA report Transforming Europe's food system — Assessing the EU policy mix looks at food systems in Europe and across the world. Food systems account for almost one-third of GHG emissions. This report aims to understand the gaps and inconsistencies in current EU policy mixes, and how to overcome them.

A good starting point to evaluate a policy is to look at how others analysed similar interventions and pinpoint the common elements, approaches or methodologies. Find nearly 600 evaluations in the field of environment and climate policies across Europe in our catalogue.

Open and accessible data on public policy evaluations gives decision makers valuable information about policy design and feedback from their peers. The EEA catalogue of European environment and climate policy evaluations provides these types of data. It gives readers an overview of the methodologies and approaches to policy evaluations undertaken in European countries. Furthermore, the catalogue indicates which areas are best covered by policies: a lack of evaluation might mean a lack of policy action.