When Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, announced the “Green Deal” for Europe in December 2019, she dared to make bold comparisons. With a whole series of new laws, it is necessary to “reconcile our economy with the planet,” she promised. That is why the program is the “beginning of a journey” and at the same time Europe’s “man-on-the-moon moment”, comparable to the huge undertaking with which the Americans once brought their astronauts to the moon.
That sounded good and promised hope in the fight against the impending hot weather. But a year later it became clear that Europe’s climate protection rocket would not even make it to the launch pad and would now be left empty-handed at the climate summit with US President Biden. Because the rulers in the EU capitals refuse the spirit of great joint effort that von der Leyen wanted to conjure up. Instead, they indulge in the defense of the fossil fuel industries in the supposedly national interest and thus expose the weakness of this EU Commission.
The most recent example is the power struggle over the “taxonomy” regulation. This should list which types of production are demonstrably climate-friendly. A reliable label created in this way for “green” investments would channel hundreds of billions of euros into the right companies, and the capital market would become a powerful lever for climate protection. For this purpose, the commission appointed a special group of experts who presented a scientifically based list. The use of fossil fuels was of course not mentioned in it and the Commission initially followed this advice.
Things are also bad on the other fronts of the climate battle
But then the gas industry, led by the state-owned companies Equinor (Norway) and Gazprom (Russia), used all its lobbying power to save the myth of natural gas as a “bridging technology”. This has actually long been refuted. The promotion of the fuel releases so much of the strong greenhouse gas methane that gas power is just as damaging to the climate as electricity from coal. But nine EU governments from Poland to Greece shy away from switching to clean power sources and insist that converting their electricity industry from coal to gas is “sustainable”, regardless of what science says. Fearing defeat in the council of national governments, von der Leyen then had her officials write a nappy-soft compromise proposal that would give the better gas kilns the green coat. This in turn met with massive protests from the experts appointed by the commission itself. With the classification of gas power as “green” the whole project would be implausible. That is why the commissioners had to postpone the project for now.
The situation is similarly bad on the other fronts of the climate battle. With around 140 billion euros per year, the EU states are promoting the consumption of fossil fuels to this day – a mistake that directly counteracts the EU climate targets, as Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans complains. But the national defenders of the status quo are sticking to it, including the Germans. The Merkel cabinet did not even want to cut the annual 11.5 billion euro discounts for dirty diesel cars. The 60 billion euro agricultural subsidies are also intended – contrary to what the EU Commission has called for – to continue to largely promote climate-damaging industrial agriculture.
The most important project of the von der Leyen Commission also reveals its greatest weakness: the Commissioners and their President are powerless against the national governments. As top officials, they are only appointed, not elected. They cannot rely on the will of the citizens. If climate protection is to succeed, however, it is imperative to have European leadership against the small national states. When Europe’s grandees will soon be negotiating the future form of government of the EU at the long-promised conference on the future, that should be at the top of the agenda. If the Green Deal fails, the Europe project will also fail.
I am a technology author with 8 years of experience in journalism. My writing covers the latest technology advancements and trends, drawing on my expertise in news journalism and social media platforms. I have contributed to major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
