As we wrap up the week before the COP25 climate summit in Madrid on Monday – a week in which the European Parliament followed at least one influential EU member state in declaring a climate emergency – let's take a quick look at the leaked (on Thursday) sketch of the European Green Deal, apparently a note (undated) from the Commission to EU diplomats.

Assume it is New Year’s Eve 2020 and we have achieved, precisely, the EU’s target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels. It took 30 years, the collapse of heavy industry in post-communist East and Central Europe and a global financial crisis in addition to, in the last decade, the Renewable Energy Directive and all the rest, but we got the job done.

Next week will see MEPs vote on whether to declare a state of climate emergency and adopt their position on the COP25, while anticipation is growing as the incoming European Commission prepares to nail its environmental colours to the mast in the form of the European Green Deal

The head of the chemical sector’s main representative body in Brussels outlines how the industry is striving to comply with EU law and why it wants policymakers to focus the EU’s forthcoming strategy on innovation and enforcement

The chair of the European water regulators’ association WAREG talks to ENDS about how the sector can achieve the EU’s goals of environmental sustainability, economic efficiency and social equity

Green MEP Bas Eickhout will head the European Parliament's delegation to the COP25 next month. He speaks to ENDS about the need for Europe to recognise a climate emergency, the demands from the public for more drastic action, and how the parliament is getting its act together

More has been achieved by Extinction Rebellion in the 18 months since its founders first gathered than in three decades of campaigning by environmental organisations, says Tim Crosland, a co-ordinator of the group

European law on environmental protection is only as good as the mechanism through which it is implemented, Anaïs Berthier from campaigning lawyers' organisation ClientEarth tells ENDS the mechanism is faulty