Cutting carbon emissions to zero in line with the Paris climate accord could require up to €290bn a year in additional investment in Europe, the EU has said as it prepares the ground for a bruising battle at next week’s UN climate talks.

Brussels’ new climate strategy road map, published on Wednesday, outlines a range of scenarios aimed at reducing carbon emissions and preventing damaging global warming. Together they show the far-reaching changes and huge investments that will be needed for European nations to comply with the Paris deal and cut emissions to net zero by 2050.

Lowering carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 is crucial if global warming is to be limited to 1.5C, according to a recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Signatories to the Paris agreement, including the EU, committed to “pursuing efforts” to restrict temperature increases to 1.5C as part of a plan to limit global warming to well below 2C compared with pre-industrial levels.