Easterners threaten to wreck EU climate push
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were threatening yesterday to wreck the European Union’s new push for climate neutrality by 2050, just a day after the bloc’s executive trumpeted it as Europe’s “man on the moon” moment.
The 27 EU national leaders will meet in Brussels and push to agree to put their bloc on net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, luring the reluctant eastern member states with extra money to transform their economies.
With floods, fires and droughts wrecking lives around the world, Greenpeace climate activists climbed the Brussels building where the leaders were to meet, unfurling banners reading “Climate Emergency”, firing off red flares and blaring fire alarm sirens. Some were detained by police.
The eastern countries want more money to fund a transition to a future of lower emissions, including a role for nuclear power which emits no carbon but which Germany and others aim to phase out.
“It is important to have certainty that nobody will stop us in the construction of nuclear power units,” Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis told reporters before leaving for Brussels. A senior diplomat from one of those hesitant countries said of the latest draft summit decision: “For us, it definitely does not go far enough. Both in terms of nuclear, but also on burden-sharing and financial support.”
Another EU diplomat estimated chances for an agreement at the summit - which must be unanimous - at 50/50.
The bloc’s new chief executive proposed a Green Deal this week to mobilise 100 billion euros worth of investment to help economies move away from fossil fuels. But Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are not yet on board, demanding that any decision spells out in more detail the scale and scope of financing available, and pushing to include funding for nuclear energy.
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