These examples all took place within two weeks  

and show how climate change is increasing  the intensity and frequency of these events.

Scientists have been begging for urgent  action, and Europe is stepping up the plate.

The European Commission put  forward the world's first  

wide-ranging and concrete set of measures  to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So, what's the plan?

The European Union has pledged to reduce  net greenhouse gas emissions by at least  

55% from 1990 levels within the next ten years.

That's very ambitious because it has only cut  its emission by 24% so far since 1990 and it is  

putting in place a lot of policies designed to  get it to that more ambitious target in 2030.

The aim is to become carbon neutral by 2050,  

and now it's published the proposals it hopes  will help the 27-member bloc reach that goal.

For example, the new measures would mandate:

a de facto ban on producing new diesel-  and gasoline-powered cars by 2035,

producing at least 40% of  energy from renewable sources,

and planting three billion  trees across Europe by 2030.

The centerpiece of this package  is a plan to make polluters  

pay for their emissions. So how would this work?

Europe's Emissions Trading System,  which has been in place since 2005,  

puts a limit on the total amount of greenhouse  gases that businesses across the EU can emit.

Under the scheme, a set number of emissions  allowances are issued every year.

Companies must hold enough of these allowances to cover their emissions, or they'll get a big fine.

These allowances act as a type of currency.

If a company doesn't have enough  allowances, they must either cut  

their emissions or buy allowances off  another business who didn't use theirs up.

This serves as a financial incentive,  

rewarding companies which cut their carbon  dependency and upping costs for big polluters.

The overall limit is gradually reduced over time  

to keep the continent on course  for its long-term climate targets.

And the European Commission  wants to take it a step further.

The aviation industry, for instance, had been  exempt from these requirements since 2012.

The commission wants to phase that out.

It also wants shipping, one  of the most polluting sectors,

to be included in its  emissions trading scheme too.

It has also suggested a second Emissions Trading System, which would include road

transportation and emissions from buildings.

We have seen dramatic falls in greenhouse  gas emissions from the power sector,  

but the two laggards at the moment is transports,  it's the way we get around and then the other is  

on the buildings sector, where at the moment  too many houses in Europe are heated by gas,

fossil gas, we need to get rid of that, we need  to get out of this system entirely and they're the  

trickiest nuts to crack because they have  a direct impacts on the lives of citizens,

so it's really important that we address those  emissions in a way which is socially fair.

The commission is aware that the transition  to carbon neutrality will have a cost,

and that it's likely to hit the most  vulnerable parts of society the hardest.

That's why it has suggested that 25%  

of the revenue from emissions trading  should go to a Social Climate Fund.

The fund will be dedicated to helping these  citizens pay for energy efficient technologies,

including heating and cooling  systems and cleaner transport.

But the EU can't control what  happens outside of its borders,  

which is why the commission also wants  to impose a carbon price on imports.

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, also  known as CBAM, puts a price on carbon imports.

It's designed to incentivize  places with less stringent  

emission rules to reduce their carbon footprint.

If approved, it would make importing these  goods just as expensive as producing them  

on the continent under the  EU's carbon pricing rules.

But countries such as China, India, South Africa  and Brazil have raised concerns about what

this could mean for their economies and people.

CBAM has very big implications for  countries which are exporting into  

the EU market and they are going to have to  

invest in serious dialogue with those  countries to bring them on board.

And one of the ways to do that is to make  sure that the revenues that will be generated  

are returned to those countries to  support their low carbon transition.

As you can see, this plan is quite detailed.

And though it takes concrete steps  towards a carbon neutral continent,  

some environmental groups say Europe  should be even more ambitious.

We find that this package is not credible,  that this package is much too low  

and that this package gives the impression  that the EU is acting when actually the  

action is too weak, too slow to prevent the  dramatic impacts of runaway climate change.

For Greenpeace this package is based on a target  that is too low, is not aligned with science  

and it will not prevent the ongoing destruction  of the earth's life's support systems.

If they had proposed this climate package 30  years ago, I think they would have received  

a lot of praise but now we no longer have  the time for the small evolutionary steps.

Others are concerned about implementation.

It's fine to set the policy, but we  have seen many cases where policies  

haven't really been realized.

We look for instance to what  happened in France when it  

tried to increase carbon taxes  on fuels. It led to a backlash.

These proposals are now in the hands  of European lawmakers, who will have to  

decide whether they go too far or lack the  ambition needed to tackle climate change.

Which leaves one more critical question:  when will they come into force?

It is not going to be an easy path. We can  expect at least two years of legislative process.

We have up to 12 pieces of legislation with really  

significant implications for the  European economy, all moving together.

So, on the one hand this means there is a huge  complexity, there is a huge workload, a huge  

burden but at the same time there are  advantages in trying to do everything  

together in a big package, because it  means that you can have trade-offs.

One of the reasons that we can have some hope here  is that businesses, companies won't need to wait

for all of this legislation to be made law before  they start changing the way they do business.

The signal has now been sent; the winners  in the new economy will be the ones that  

move fastest towards zero carbon business models.

We are already too late in moving  on climate change, we can see  

this summer, extreme weather events all around the  world, and it is going to continue to get worse  

for at least the next three decades  until we get to net zero as a world.

We need to make this transition orderly  because if we kill lots of people and lose  

lots of jobs in the process of getting to net  zero then that will not be a successful route.

We need an orderly but accelerated  transition towards net zero emissions.