This article is part of POLITICO’s Changemakers series, looking at the players driving European policy.
Going green is not only good for the planet but will boost the EU’s global status — that’s the thinking in Brussels.
Ursula von der Leyen’s hallmark European Green Deal is meant to ensure the Continent cuts greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 to help meet the Paris Agreement’s climate goals.
It’s also about making money, and winning the global clean energy race against China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest polluters and most powerful economic blocs. “Those who act first and fastest will be the ones who grasp the opportunities from the ecological transition,” von der Leyen said in her program. “I want Europe to be the front-runner.”
Here are five people that will impact the bloc’s climate neutrality agenda.
Frans Timmermans, the European Green Deal vice president
Aris Oikonomou/AFP via Getty Images
Frans Timmermans, an experienced Dutch politician and Brussels insider, is tasked with turning von der Leyen’s ambitious aims into reality. That’s going to be a tough struggle both inside and outside the Commission.
He’ll have to convince fellow commissioners that the difficulties of greening the EU economy and radically changing the way people produce, consume and use resources can be overcome. He’ll also need to get buy-in from business and industrial sectors to go along with ever tighter environmental regulation and emissions reduction targets. In his favor, Timmermans knows how to work the power corridors of the EU’s institutions and beyond, having served as foreign affairs minister for the Netherlands and as vice president under the outgoing Jean-Claude Juncker Commission. Timmermans also showed during his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament that he’s got a solid grasp of the policy details.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister
John Thys/AFP via Getty Images
Poland is going to be a heavyweight at December’s Council summit on setting the EU’s long-term climate goals, and not in a way that will please most of the bloc. Poland — along with Hungary and the Czech Republic — is for now refusing to back the goal of the EU becoming climate neutral by 2050. “We defended Polish interests,” Morawiecki said in June when his government blocked the first effort to set the target. Getting Morawiecki to change course is going to cost a lot of money, to help soften the blow of decarbonization for high-emitting regions.
A proposed EU-funded Just Transition fund “needs to be significantly larger” that what’s on the table, according to a government position paper. The EU’s 2050 target places Morawiecki in a political fix. About 80 percent of Poland’s electricity is generated by coal, and the sector is politically powerful at home. The government is making belated efforts to cut coal use, but the dirty fossil fuel will remain a major power source. Morawiecki is also lukewarm on the cost involved in decarbonization, pointing out earlier this month that “the EU won’t repair the global climate on its own.”
Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank
A former German deputy foreign minister and a fervent believer in market economics, Werner Hoyer isn’t your usual climate activist. But under his leadership, the European Investment Bank is proposing to cease support for fossil fuel projects by the end of 2020, a major break with past policy. Since 2013, the EIB has provided €11.8 billion to fossil-fuel infrastructure, generation and extraction — including a pledge last year of €2.4 billion in support to the Southern Gas Corridor, meant to ship Azerbaijani gas to Europe and reduce reliance on Russian imports.
The EIB’s shift faces pushback from gas-reliant countries such as Germany and Italy; the Commission remains on the fence. As the world’s largest multilateral development bank, a policy shift would send a strong signal to other multilateral lenders, as well as commercial banks, that fossil investments are increasingly seen as a risk. “Business-as-usual — or even incremental policy changes — will not deliver on these [climate] ambitions,” Hoyer said in Washington recently, adding: “Policies need to change and change quickly. If we get it wrong, we will lock in high carbon energy infrastructures that ultimately will make the energy transition much more costly for us all.”
Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s climate and energy minister
Stephanie Lecocq/EPA
Denmark recently committed to slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels — and it will be up to Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s new climate and energy minister, to figure out how. “We are … honest and saying: ‘Right now we don’t have the tools to do it. It’s simply not possible with the means that we know we have,’” Jørgensen said in a recent interview. “We know what we need to do for the next couple of years, but we also need to set in place a lot of research, a lot of demonstration projects and a lot of cooperation with other countries.”
The Scandinavian country’s goal is very ambitious. The minister hopes it will serve as an inspiration for other countries. Jørgensen, who served as vice-chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee for four years, is also spearheading efforts to push for more ambitious climate targets at the EU level. An insider to how the Brussels bubble works, the former MEP is vocal and media-friendly, and is looking for allies in his push for the EU to agree to climate neutrality by 2050.
Pascal Canfin, chair of European Parliament’s environment committee
European Union
Pascal Canfin ticks all the boxes to leave his mark on EU climate policy. He’s a former environmental campaigner, a former French minister, an ally of French President Emmanuel Macron — who’s cast himself as the champion of the Paris Agreement — and the chair of the powerful Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in the European Parliament. As such he’ll play a key role in negotiations to implement the European Green Deal over the next years and set new climate targets. For Canfin, the No. 1 political priority for the next five year is “a carbon-free Europe.” That includes greening the finance system and ensuring a deal on the next seven-year EU budget is agreed with climate goals in mind.
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