Rolling out the Green Deal will be 'challenging,' warns Maroš Šefčovič, the EU's new climate czar

autotldr Bot , 10 months ago

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Over the past couple of years, the EU has passed a raft of transformative laws to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% before the end of the decade, including a gradual ban on the combustion engine, a border tax on polluting imports and new beefed-up targets for energy efficiency.

Šefčovič was speaking with Euronews in one of his first TV interviews since being promoted to Executive Vice-President in charge of the European Green Deal, taking over Frans Timmermans, who last week resigned to lead a centre-left alliance in the forthcoming general election in the Netherlands.

With the reshuffle, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tried to preserve the delicate political balance in her college: the overarching green portfolio is therefore left in the hands of the socialist group, while the job of climate diplomacy and finance is turned into a separate role, possibly for the conservatives.

The approach reflects the anxiety unleashed across the continent as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), an initiative introduced last summer by US President Joe Biden that offers generous tax credits, rebates and subsidies to producers of green technology – as long as manufacturing takes place on North American soil.

In a countermove, the European Commission unveiled earlier this year a new industrial strategy to drastically boost the domestic production of key components, such as batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and heat pumps.

In response to recent comments made by some European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, in which they asked for a “pause” in climate legislation, Šefčovič said another of his priorities would be to decrease the administrative burden “as much as possible.”

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