Europe 'needs to stand up to Trump and stop buying US energy', Tubiana tells Euronews
The CEO of the European Climate Foundation, who served as France's climate change ambassador for the 2015 United Nations climate summit in Paris, remains a climate optimist and points to China as an example to follow.
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00:00Laurence Thibiana, thank you so much for taking time out to join us this morning on Europe Today.
00:05Hello, nice to have me.
00:08Yeah, great to have you this early on a Monday morning.
00:10Laurence, look, mines are occupied, as you've heard there, with the ongoing war in Ukraine.
00:14So the climate emergency has kind of been politically parked here, if you like, in Brussels.
00:19But 10 years on from the Paris Agreement, are you confident it is still intact?
00:24It's not, meaning it works, but not to speed enough.
00:29It works because we have seen a major transformation of the world economy, in particular in the green technology,
00:36so as of China investment in renewable energy, the fact that almost all countries have a climate low now since Paris,
00:44and 88% of global emissions are covered by a commitment to be net zero by the mid-century.
00:50So, and you see every day, even the public awareness is absolutely not comparable.
00:56Well, even the media, I think, now understand the problems, because, of course, climate change is now, unfortunately,
01:02really putting enormous stress on many, many countries and many, many societies every year, these days.
01:10But we have a climate change denier in the White House, President Donald Trump.
01:14How does that impact your efforts?
01:15I think it's very damaging, more than probably the first moment when Donald Trump decided in 2017 to withdraw from Paris Agreement.
01:25And you see the pressure, of course, on many countries, in particular small countries.
01:30And you see more aggressivity for the oil and gas producers that really want the Paris Agreement to be delayed or blocked.
01:38And so we feel the pressure. It's a very difficult geopolitical situation.
01:42But the interesting thing is, at COP30, you have 85 countries that decided to plan for a win out of fossil fuel, you know.
01:52So on one side, nobody minus the U.S. has decided to withdraw from Paris Agreement.
01:58The second element is now there are countries that more decided than never to get out of the dependence from fossil fuel, including Brazil.
02:06So you think that was a success? Because many would have considered that a failure, the COP30 this year in Brazil.
02:12It is not. It's complex, of course. Again, it's more violent and aggressive than has never.
02:18I haven't seen since my whole life working on climate, I've never seen such aggressivity from the U.S., including, as you know, the pressure in particular on Europe.
02:27And that's so important that Europe stand up and don't decide to go, you know, for more import for fossil fuel and LNG, even from the U.S.
02:37We have to be independent. And economic security is energy security these days.
02:42And just finally, the EU wants to be carbon neutral by 2050. Do you think that's still achievable?
02:46I think it's achievable if we continue the good work that has been done all over the fight last year.
02:53If we go, we increase renewable energy. If we now decarbonize, of course, the industry, we can be there.
03:02And we will be in time for 2030, minus 55 percent, which was already enormous.
03:09And then I think we are in a good shape.
03:12OK. On that positive note, we can bring that conversation to an end, Laurence Thibiana.
03:15Thank you so much for joining us here this morning on Europe Today.
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