Ursula von
der Leyen’s risky climate gambit
The
Commission president’s green honeymoon is going to be very short.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN AND KALINA OROSCHAKOFF 12/12/19, 11:12 AM CET Updated 12/12/19,
12:10 PM CET
Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen grabbed the Continent's attention with
Wednesday's announcement of her Green New Deal program that aims to turn the EU
climate neutral by mid-century.
The
honeymoon could last less than a day.
Just hours
after her lofty speech calling her program Europe's "man on the moon
moment," political reality will return to Brussels when the leaders of 27
member countries show up for a two-day summit and scrap over whether to agree
on a goal of zero net emissions by 2050.
The omens
aren't great. Leaders failed to agree on that target in June thanks to
resistance from Central Europeans worried about the economic costs of such a
pledge, and the defiance hasn't died. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland
have no plans to shift positions unless they get massive dollops of EU cash to
take the sting out of decarbonizing their coal-dependent economies.
"Poland
is determined to find an agreement, but at the moment we don't have it — not in
the way we'd like," Konrad Szymański, Poland's Europe minister, said
earlier this week.
Von der
Leyen — a conservative German Christian Democrat — isn't being soft-hearted in
becoming an apostle for tackling climate change.
Council
President Charles Michel and his team were scrambling Wednesday in an effort to
rewrite the Council's draft conclusions in order to win unanimous endorsement
of the proposal, but it was unclear that changes to the text alone would be
sufficient. Poland feels that what’s in the conclusions is "insufficient,"
said an EU diplomat.
Szymański
insisted that the conclusions include ironclad guarantees that climate policies
won't hurt the Polish economy, which gets about 80 percent of its electricity
from coal. "Without such hard promises, there will be no agreement,"
he warned.
Countries
vulnerable to economic damage from climate policies are looking for financial
guarantees that Brussels cannot provide because the bloc hasn't yet finalized
its next seven-year budget. The Central Europeans are very suspicious that the
promises of generous funding will simply move existing cash around; they want
new money, and lots of it.
Brass-knuckle
politics also derailed another climate initiative on Wednesday, when a group of
countries that use or want to use nuclear power scuttled a tentative deal on
setting rules for green investments, concerned that the so-called taxonomy
would exclude financing for nuclear projects.
Wagons
loaded with coal on a side track at Towarowy station in Rybnik, Poland | Wojtek
Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
But von der
Leyen — a conservative German Christian Democrat — isn't being soft-hearted in
becoming an apostle for tackling climate change.
Europe has
been rocked by climate protests, as increasingly grim scientific reports make
clear that something is going deeply awry with the world's weather.
The Green
Deal is a response to those pressures, and represents a turning point among big
nations. It stands to shift the clamor for urgent action off the streets, where
hundreds of thousands of young people have vented their anger and frustration
in recent months, and into the buildings where laws and regulations get made:
the directorates general of the Commission, the summit room of the Council, and
the committee rooms of the European Parliament.
A senior EU
official, pressed on the disagreements about the proposed 2050 target, said
leaders should use their ears and hear the political music: "One of the
elements that the heads of state and government will have to take into account
is the pressure outside the room on this."
As a
result, von der Leyen has staked her credibility as Commission president and
the bloc's international reputation on her program which aims to revamp almost
every aspect of life — from global trading relationships, to farm policy, which
cars drive on European roads, how power is generated, how phones and computers
are designed and how offices and homes are built.
“The old
growth-model based on fossil-fuels and pollution is out of date, out of time
and out of touch with our planet,” von der Leyen said. “We want to be the first
to overcome these limits. The first to really do things differently. The
first-movers in industry, innovation and clean investment.”
EU sets the
rules
The push by
the EU is hardly just altruistic. In an era of big-power competition,
especially with China and the U.S., the EU is hoping that being in the vanguard
on the climate fight will solidify Brussels as the premier international
“rule-maker” and champion of a new multilateral, rules-based order.
And beyond
geopolitical supremacy, vast sums of money stand to be won or lost in the
global industrial race to go green — whether in renewable energy, or the
manufacture of electric cars and next-generation batteries.
“Those who
act first and fastest will be the ones who grasp the opportunities from the
ecological transition,” von der Leyen wrote in her program. “I want Europe to
be the front-runner.”
At the same
time, von der Leyen seemed to acknowledge that the Green Deal could prove to be
a political suicide mission, as it will inevitably require policymakers to
choose winners and losers — to disrupt if not kill entire industries, to put
untold numbers of people out of work, and to generally risk infuriating voters
by forcing them to change how they live in all sorts of ways, faster than anyone
ever expected.
Von der
Leyen insisted that the EU would act carefully and soften the blow where
needed. “I want to be very clear: this transition will be just for all, or it
will not work at all,” she said. “A crucial part of our plan is the Just
Transition Mechanism. We have the ambition to mobilize €100 billion in
investment for the most vulnerable sectors and regions.”
But as
Prague, Budapest and Warsaw fear, it's far from clear that EU members are ready
to commit the large sums that will be needed, especially at a time when the
bloc's budget is under pressure because of Brexit and many national economies
are facing the risk of an economic slowdown.
The Green
Deal's first brush with reality came in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
While many MEPs were supportive, there were already some skeptical voices.
Silvia
Sardone, an Italian MEP from the far-right Identity and Democracy group, called
the Green Deal "a book of dreams."
"I
understand that the Commission needs to have an image that is in fashion
because it's not that you are really loved," Sardone said. "But I
don't think shooting slogans is the right thing to do."
For many
constituents, the Green Deal may quickly prove too much. For the most ardent
environmental advocates, it is already seen as too little. The EU's plans are
all well and good, but they want Europe and the rest of the world to adopt more
ambitious emissions targets, on a much more aggressive time-frame.
Long
disappointed by people in power, these activists will be looking for proof that
the European Green Deal was not just some snappy way for von der Leyen to get
herself confirmed as European Commission president, but a real package of
policy prescriptions intended to help save the Earth from disaster.
Maïa de la
Baume and Zosia Wanat contributed reporting.
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