EU leaders are hailing their drive to make Europe the world's first carbon-neutral continent by 2050 as a "Man on the Moon" moment. But is Europe's giant leap towards net-zero carbon emissions at risk of becoming a stumble in the dark, amid a rise in right-wing populism that has seen more and more Europeans turning against green policies?
With 9,590 days to go until "climate neutrality" on January 1, 2050, according to the European Commission's countdown clock, Ester Asin, director of the European Policy Office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told FRANCE 24 that Europe's so-called Green Deal is at a pivotal juncture.
As record heat, droughts, floods and wildfires batter Europe with greater frequency and intensity, Asin said the EU should be speeding up its efforts to achieve its green goals, rather than applying the political brakes, as she thinks some parties are doing. "We believe that now, after the summer that we had, [and] the many summers that we are likely to get, is not the time to pause or to slow down. On the contrary, we need to continue on the path of reforms to ensure that we get to this transition, which is also fair to all Europeans."
'Massively' deploy renewables
Asin called on European leaders to raise their climate ambitions to achieve climate neutrality by 2040 – ten years ahead of the "Green Deal" timeline, which also aims to reduce net carbon emissions by a little more than half by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. She said a key to this target would be to "massively deploy renewable energies". "Why? Because that is going also to help to make our energy bills cheaper. And that will get us out of the dependency on the fossil fuels that is causing some of the multiple crises that many people are living today."
She continued: "And then we need to ensure that there is public funding available to support this transition, to support social policies and environmental policies, climate policies, but also to ensure that the private flows, the money that the banks are investing is also aligned to get us to this transition. And last but not least, we have to make pay the big polluters." Environmental campaigners are also questioning the political commitment of Europe's leaders towards achieving their ambitious climate targets.
A controversial climate candidate
Adding to their concerns is the man next in line to possibly become Europe's next Commissioner for climate action, the former Dutch deputy prime minister Wopke Hoekstra. He is expected to face a tough grilling from MEPs in early October. If approved, he would report to the European Commission's Executive Vice President Maros Sefcovic, both men replacing Hoekstra's fellow Dutchman Frans Timmermans on the climate portfolio. Hoekstra, a conservative from the centre-right European People's Party of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, would also serve as the chief EU negotiator at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in November. But his past history working for Shell, a multinational fossil fuel company, in the early 2000s, is raising the hackles of climate activists such as Asin. She recently wrote an open letter to von der Leyen, on behalf of the Green 10, a coalition of leading environmental NGOs, explaining why she thinks Hoekstra is the wrong man for the job. "We are concerned, as is very clearly expressed in the letter, about his actual credentials, his work for Shell, a very well-known oil and gas company," Asin wrote.
The EU's man at COP28?
She noted that as Dutch finance minister in 2020, Hoekstra granted €3.4 billion in state aid to the Franco-Dutch airline KLM, as part of the government's Covid recovery plan. "And there were no environmental conditionalities attached to that," she said. Asin added: "We don't believe that he has the necessary experience in climate diplomacy to be able… to lead the EU participation in one of the most critical COP summits, which is the COP28 now. And we know that our calls are supported also by many, many organisations, and the calls also have been picked up, at least by the Members of the European Parliament, in the written questions that have been addressed to Mr Hoekstra ahead of his hearing next week." Von der Leyen, for her part, offered her strong backing for Hoekstra shortly after the Dutch government put forward his name in late August, citing his governmental experience as a "strong asset" in the upcoming COP28 talks. "Mr Hoekstra showed strong motivation for the post and great commitment to the European Union," von der Leyen said. "He also has relevant professional experience for this post."
Produced by Sophie Samaille, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero
