Green Deal is ‘no longer an ecological, but an economic agenda’, says EU climate official [Advocacy Lab Content]

5 months ago 21

The European Green Deal is “an agenda of economic modernisation” rather than an ecological agenda, said the head of the European Commission’s climate department at a recent Euractiv event. Industry and competitiveness will gain greater prominence in the bloc’s future climate and energy policies.

Industrial policy is set to be at the heart of the EU’s energy and climate policies in the upcoming policy mandate, as results at the European Parliament elections on June 6-9 confirmed a shift towards the right and a stronger push for competitiveness in the bloc’s economic sectors.

This adaptation in the EU executive narrative was made clear at a Euractiv event on the future of the EU’s climate policy at the end of May, where the head of the European Commission’s climate department signalled that the European Green Deal is “no longer an ecologic agenda.”

“We should really make it clear that we’re not doing this for the planet: the planet couldn’t care less whether it warms up,” said Kurt Vandenberghe, director-general at the Commission’s climate department (DG CLIMA).

“What really matters is how to make the planet livable for people and to keep our civilization and our economic standards. And so we’re doing this for people, not for the planet,” he added.

Reconciling environmental objectives

The debate comes as the EU is trying to reconcile its environmental objectives with its industrialisation agenda, as an increasing number of sectors are scrambling to retain manufacturing and innovation in Europe.

The EU has now “woken up to the reality of industrial policy,” said the Polish Secretary of State for Climate Krzysztof Bolesta.

“[Up until now ] we’ve been quite naive in terms of meeting the climate and energy policies, we basically outsourced clean tech,” he told the Euractiv audience.

“The implementation of the Green Deal made us realise that this is not the way we should protect ourselves better: there should be also carrots for our industries,” he added.

The CEO of the EU’s cement trade association Cembureau, Koen Coppenholle, said that an industrial strategy “needs to complement the European Green Deal right now”.

“[For our sector] it’s not only about carbon capture and use and storage (CCUS), it’s also about recourse to alternative fuels to replace our fossil fuels from waste streams,” he remarked.

“We’re looking into a reduction of clinker to cement ratio, and at substituting materials for clinker […] which then indeed allow us to increase our ambition from 30% in the previous roadmap to 37%, in 2030,” he added, referring to Cembureau’s recently-launched net-zero roadmap for the cement sector.

“We need access to the infrastructure, pipelines, storage sites, etcetera. so, there’s a whole range of regulatory requirements coming in, but that’s part of the industrial strategy that needs to complement the Green Deal right now,” he added.

Is this a ‘greenlash’?

Together with industrial policy, one of the main questions of the next EU policy mandate is to see whether the European Green Deal will stand the rise of the backlash coming from certain groups, including farmers and some sectors of society in some member states.

Manon Dufour, executive director at think-tank E3G, said that the ‘greenlash’ narrative is “very appealing.”

“It’s sometimes been orchestrated by populist parties who are using a climate of fear, like concerns about the cost of living, which is genuine, to point at governments taking green policies as a way to encourage breaches of people’s freedoms,” she said.

“There are lessons to be learned. And I think that […] if you start looking at it a little closer, whether it’s like the farmers protest that, a lot of it is actually still about biodiversity loss, the future of rural areas, or water consumption,” she told the audience.

Dariusz Marzec, CEO at Polish state-owned utility PGE, said “There has to be some kind of balance, to make sure we set those targets realistically, affordably, because at the end of the day, the customer, the industry and the economy have to pay for that.”

“I would say we have enough ambitious targets now. We have to think how to achieve them,” he added.

Investment gap

In order to achieve its 2030 energy and climate targets, the European Union will have to bridge an annual investment gap of some €406 billion per year.

Whether this should come from public funding or private – such as capital markets – has been a burning question and one that the next EU policy mandate will need to address. Currently, industry has favoured a stronger role for public funding, whereas EU officials have been clear that private sector investments will be needed.

[By Anna Gumbau I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]