As the EU balances sustainable goals with industrial growth, will the cost put the Green Deal at risk?
As we prepared to go to print on this edition of The Parliament, which focuses on the EU’s green transition, Americans decisively elected a president who maintains climate change is a “hoax.”
The potential for a second Trump administration to reshape the global order cannot be overstated – with profound economic and security implications for Europe. The US commitment to the transatlantic alliance – and by extension support for Ukraine in its fight to counter Russia’s war of aggression – now hangs in the balance. Unilateral tariffs on European industry could trigger a trade war and derail the EU’s economy.
But the most immediate impact of Donald Trump’s return to power could be around climate policy. His re-election comes amid efforts by the EU’s own right-wing politicians to dilute the bloc’s signature Green Deal.
Trump’s widely expected move to – again – pull the US out of the Paris climate accord as early as January could further embolden allies across the continent, like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Meloni said recently that the Green Deal’s “ideological approach” has had “disastrous results” that could lead to Europe’s deindustrialisation, while Orbán has called the EU’s climate plans a “utopian fantasy.”
The two far-right leaders, along with the likes of France’s Marine Le Pen, have channelled the frustrations of Europe’s farmers, small-business owners and everyday consumers caught off-guard by the economic burden of transitioning to a green economy.
The European Climate Law – a key tenet of the Green Deal – committed the EU to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. It also set a target of reducing emissions by 55 per cent by 2030. But both of those goals will remain out of reach without the political will to pass and implement new laws to take the Green Deal forward.
Indeed, on Thursday the EU’s earth observation agency said the increase in global temperatures is now expected to reach an average of 1.55C above pre-industrial levels this year, exceeding the 1.5C threshold mandated by the Paris accord.
The data was released just days before world leaders were set to gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the COP29 climate summit, where the election results of the world’s second-largest greenhouse-gas emitter are likely to make waves. The robust climate policies implemented under President Joe Biden over the past four years – including aspects of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act and a raft of environmental regulations – are now on the chopping block.
And once again, the world holds its breath for a directive from the mercurial, once-and-future American president, who just weeks ago called climate change “one of the greatest scams of all time.”
– Christopher Alessi, Editor-in-Chief