EU climate chief: Europe must ‘fill the vacuum’ after US exits climate talks

euronews (in English)

Brussels must up its game on climate diplomacy, climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told Euronews, after US president Donald Trump once again pulled out of the global effort to arrest climate breakdown.

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00:00One of Donald Trump's first actions as president has been to withdraw the United States from the

00:04Paris Climate Agreement. This is exactly what he did first time around in 2017,

00:10although Joe Biden reversed the decision four years later. The goal of the Paris Climate

00:15Agreement is to limit the global average temperature rise to no more than 1.5 centigrades,

00:21speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The EU's Environment Commissioner told Euronews

00:26that Trump's decision is regrettable, but also an opportunity.

00:30Well, first and foremost, we will continue to engage with our American friends and partners

00:35across domains, in the domain of geopolitics, in the domain of trade, but also in the domain

00:39of climate action. But also this will require more assertiveness, more diplomacy from Europe

00:46across the globe. And of course, when there is a vacuum, others will fill it. And that

00:52holds good for us, but I'm sure the Chinese, the Indians and others will play their part as well.

01:00Hoekstra added that the EU should not deviate from its path,

01:04which aims at significantly shifting away from Russian fossil fuel energy.

01:09So what we will do is a couple of things in the years to come. You know, we will continue to

01:13double down on renewables, on grid capacity, on battery capacity. That is one. Secondly,

01:19we're going to be very, very clear on making sure we enhance our autonomy and decrease our

01:27dependencies. The commissioner also recalled that China is currently responsible for 30%

01:32of global emissions and is therefore paying close attention to Beijing's compliance with its commitments.

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