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.
03:18Thank you so much for joining us today.
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