Ursula von der Leyen speaks about Green Deal as backlash over environmental policies grows – Europe live | Europe

Brussels and Beijing have agreed to jointly develop a cooperation roadmap on the circular economy, the EU announced today.

“The aim is to complete the roadmap in the coming months so as to start its rollout in 2024,” according to a European Commission statement.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, the bloc’s commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, met in Beijing today with Zhao Chenxin, vice-chair of China’s National Development and Reform Commission for a discussion on circular economy issues, including plastics and batteries.

“The EU and China share the same vision that a transition to a sustainable, efficient, circular economy is both necessary and possible,” Sinkevičius said in a statement. “This transition will create new jobs and greater prosperity,” he said, adding: “We are at the forefront of action and can be of example to other countries.”

Fiona Harvey

The prospects of the world staying within the 1.5C limit on global heating have brightened owing to the “staggering” growth of renewable energy and green investment in the past two years, the chief of the world’s energy watchdog has said.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, and the world’s foremost energy economist, said much more needed to be done but that the rapid uptake of solar power and electric vehicles were encouraging.

“Despite the scale of the challenges, I feel more optimistic than I felt two years ago,” he said in an interview. “Solar photovoltaic installations and electric vehicle sales are perfectly in line with what we said they should be, to be on track to reach net zero by 2050, and thus stay within 1.5C. Clean energy investments in the last two years have seen a staggering 40% increase.”

But Birol also noted that greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector were “still stubbornly high”, and that the extreme weather seen around the world this year had shown the climate was already changing “at frightening speed”.

The IEA, in a report entitled Net Zero Roadmap, published on Tuesday morning, also called on developed countries with 2050 net zero targets, including the UK, to bring them forward by several years.

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European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen made the case today that Europe’s Green Deal goes hand in hand with prosperous industry.

Speaking at a conference in Prague at a time when Europe is grappling with a backlash against climate policies, the commission chief said that “the European Green Deal was born out of the necessity to protect people and the planet, but it was also designed as an opportunity to build our future prosperity”.

Von der Leyen, a German centre-right politician who is expected to seek a second term as commission president, underlined that “we have successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions while growing our economy”.

She told the Czech crowd that their local industry benefits from the energy transition and climate-friendly policies, pointing out that some buses in Prague are starting to be powered by hydrogen – and that this new generation of buses are produced by Czech manufacturer Škoda.

There is “an immense potential” for Czech industry, she said, while also highlighting that the green deal provides “predictability” for companies.

Continuing on the theme that green investment is good for business, Von der Leyen also said that “renewable energy is not only good for our planet, but it is homegrown, it creates good jobs here and it is good for our energy independence and security”.

And she directly addressed the Czech coal industry.

“I know that many local communities are concerned about their future, because thousands of people work in lignite mines and in the coal sector,” the commission president said, and this is why we should “make it our utmost priority under the European Green Deal to invest in those regions, to ease the transformation”.

Europe is launching a new series of dialogues with industry to address the Green Deal and global challenges, she added.

Greens must shed ‘moral superiority’ image, says German vice-chancellor

Philip Oltermann

Germany’s vice-chancellor has called on supporters of environmental reforms to shed their reputation for “moral superiority” and focus on having “the better arguments” amid a backlash against climate policies across Europe.

Robert Habeck, the minister for economic affairs and climate action and a leading Green politician, said environmental parties had to push back against their instincts if they wanted their climate agenda to succeed in the long run.

Historically, he said, the Greens’ problem was “the allegation – and with every allegation that sticks there is a grain of truth – of moral superiority, of always knowing it best”.

“That’s something that dates to the green movement’s origins. To survive as a grassroots movement you have to claim to have access to some higher form of truth that others don’t. But as we Greens are transitioning to something with a broader political appeal, we are working to reduce that claim to truth and have the better arguments instead.”

Habeck’s struggles mirror similar developments in the Netherlands, where anger at plans to cut nitrogen pollution led to a shock poll win for a new farmers’ protest party, and Britain, where the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced a U-turn on some of the government’s climate commitments.

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