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Kryzys energetyczny: Europa musi działać odważniej. Wyjaśnia komisarz UE ds. klimatu
Komisarz UE ds. klimatu Wopke Hoekstra powiedział Euronews, że jedynym wyjściem z kryzysu energetycznego wywołanego wojnami w Iranie i na Ukrainie jest własna energia. „Jesteśmy to winni naszym obywatelom i firmom”.
CZYTAJ WIĘCEJ : http://pl.euronews.com/2026/05/07/komisarz-ue-ds-klimatu-na-kryzysy-energetyczne-musimy-reagowac-bardziej-radykalnie
Zasubskrybuj nasz kanał.Euronews jest dostępny na Dailymotion w 12 językach
Komisarz UE ds. klimatu Wopke Hoekstra powiedział Euronews, że jedynym wyjściem z kryzysu energetycznego wywołanego wojnami w Iranie i na Ukrainie jest własna energia. „Jesteśmy to winni naszym obywatelom i firmom”.
CZYTAJ WIĘCEJ : http://pl.euronews.com/2026/05/07/komisarz-ue-ds-klimatu-na-kryzysy-energetyczne-musimy-reagowac-bardziej-radykalnie
Zasubskrybuj nasz kanał.Euronews jest dostępny na Dailymotion w 12 językach
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00:00Dzień dobry, witam na EUROPE CONVERSATION, i'm Stefan Grobe.
00:11My guest today was nominated as Political Talent of the Year
00:16by the Parliamentary Press in the Netherlands in 2013.
00:19Living up to that nomination, he spent a decade in the Dutch Senate and House,
00:24served as Finance and Foreign Minister before joining the European Commission.
00:29I'm very excited to welcome the European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, Wopke Hoekstra.
00:35Thank you, Commissioner, for coming on the show today.
00:38Thank you very much for having me.
00:39Let me start with a personal question.
00:42You are the father of four children.
00:45Now, to what extent does that inspire you in your fight for more climate protection?
00:50Well, in any case, it means I always have a lot to explain back home,
00:54because they ask about my work.
00:58Not only our generation is preoccupied by climate change,
01:01but certainly also the kids in school.
01:04And they have turned into quite fanatic recyclers back home.
01:09That is very good.
01:11Now, last year marked the 10th anniversary of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.
01:16What is the agreement's legacy in the EU?
01:19I think it is absolutely huge.
01:22It is probably the most important thing we have done as humanity
01:27in setting out the course going forward.
01:30So, of course, there is a lot of pushback.
01:33Of course, there is more needed.
01:34Of course, the damage that we have in front of us is really dramatic.
01:39And at the same time, Paris is a beacon
01:43and has really shaped the behavior of the last 10 years.
01:47And we'll continue to do so going forward.
01:50You mentioned that today's reality is that the climate policy,
01:54the EU Green Deal, is under pressure, under political pressure.
02:00How do you feel these headwinds and how do you cope with them?
02:04I mean, I think there are two things at the same time.
02:07Indeed, in some cases, there is a bit of pushback.
02:11At the same time, what people do realize is that the combination of climate,
02:17of competitiveness and of independence truly is hugely important.
02:21And we experience that, of course, today with the horrible energy crisis.
02:26We already had a very good climate objective to get rid of fossil fuels
02:30and move into renewables and nuclear and electrification.
02:33There was also already a very good reason to do that,
02:36just for financial reasons, because energy in Europe simply is too expensive.
02:41But we now learn the hard way that we are dramatically dependent
02:45on the stuff that we have to import.
02:48We are at the mercy of international affairs, and we cannot allow that.
02:53We cannot expose our citizens and our companies to this type of vulnerability.
02:58So that we need to change.
03:00You were in Colombia recently for the first ever global talks
03:05to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.
03:09What did this conference achieve?
03:11So what it brought together was a group of like-minded countries
03:16that want to double down on accelerating.
03:20To be quite honest, the process of multilateralism and the COPs is imperfect at best.
03:29And particularly the last COP was also very, very difficult.
03:32So we need to change that system and at the same time be realistic,
03:38because if some people want to spoil it, that is possible,
03:40because it is a system that lives by unanimity.
03:43So bringing together a group of countries with more ambition,
03:48a coalition of the willing, if you will, I think is a fruitful way forward.
03:53I think it is testimony to the success that the organizers,
03:57Colombia and the Netherlands, managed to pull that off this quickly.
04:00And it is now up to this group to see what we can do more together going forward.
04:05You were also the EU's chief negotiator at the EU Climate Conference in Dubai three years ago.
04:14I want you to tell us a little about the atmosphere in the rooms.
04:19Is it emotional?
04:20Are people committed to the same cause?
04:23Or are this just lawyers haggling over every comma in the text?
04:28It is a combination.
04:30Or a mix.
04:31Yeah, and there's certainly a lot of emotion.
04:34And I mean, whatever group of people, if you put them in a room
04:37and you lock them up for some 24 hours, I mean, just because they all become tired,
04:44emotions will be visible at some point.
04:47That's the moment when the deals are struck, right?
04:49To some degree, yes.
04:50And of course, there is also always, there is innuendo, there is a bit of theater.
04:57There is, I mean, people typically master the whole playbook of any negotiation.
05:02So you will see that in front of you.
05:04What the essence of Dubai, of course, was, was that we managed to basically kiss alive
05:09a supermajority that was in favor of more action.
05:15And in the end, this was, I think, an unexpected success for diplomacy,
05:21the tripling of renewable energy, the doubling of energy efficiency,
05:26the statement about transitioning away from fossil fuels.
05:29It was a landmark result.
05:32It was one of the best COPs, frankly speaking, since Paris.
05:35So today, Europe is facing another energy crisis fueled by the war in the Gulf,
05:41the war in Iran, while we're still dealing with the fallout from another energy crisis,
05:47of course, sparked by the war in Ukraine.
05:51Isn't that a great opportunity for an EU climate commissioner to tout renewable energies?
05:58Yes, I know.
05:59And the no is, and that is maybe where I'm a bit cautious.
06:02Look, I mean, if you're fueling up your car back home or you're dealing with a higher energy bill
06:08and then politicians come to you and say, well, isn't that fantastic?
06:11And isn't that a great opportunity?
06:13I think you maybe have a bit of a different emotion.
06:17What is true and where you are absolutely right is that the only way to get out of this nightmare,
06:24the only way to get rid of this dependency is to ensure more homegrown energy.
06:30And that means more electrification, more renewables, more heat pumps,
06:35more interconnectors between our member states, more nuclear.
06:38That whole mix is needed.
06:41Including nuclear.
06:42Including nuclear.
06:43And if you look back at our history and you think about the oil crisis of 1973,
06:50the crisis that we saw in 79 after the Iranian revolution, indeed 2022.
06:56And now again, every single time, we see how vulnerable Europe is,
07:03how little energy we have ourselves.
07:06We are a resource scarce continent.
07:08So we have a huge objective, again, for climate, for competitiveness,
07:13but also for independence, to make more of this stuff ourselves.
07:16That is the way going forward.
07:19I remember that, by the way, in 1973, when my father was not allowed to drive on the highways on
07:26Sundays.
07:27Exactly.
07:28To save energies.
07:29Now, some countries like France are doubling down on the transition to clean energy in response.
07:37Will this become an EU-wide movement?
07:43Absolutely.
07:44And France is doing a very good job there.
07:47It's exactly linked to your previous question.
07:49Let's make sure we take the opportunity out of this nightmare.
07:55And we use this to accelerate what we're already planning to do.
07:59And again, if you think about these previous events, so 73, 79 and 2022,
08:05every single time, our response has been positive in the sense that we have realized that we had to become
08:12more independent.
08:13At the same time, I think the lesson is also that after every previous crisis,
08:19we actually should have been more radical.
08:22We should have been more forward-leaning.
08:25And that is what we need to do now.
08:27The world is full of geopolitical turmoil.
08:31It could well be that this is not the last episode.
08:35And we owe it to our citizens and our companies that we're not going to confront them with higher prices
08:43during the next crisis.
08:45Whether that is in three years or five years or ten years, no one knows.
08:48We have to solve this.
08:49On the other hand, some of the world's greenest countries that are endowed with fossil fuel resources,
08:56such as the Netherlands and Denmark, are eyeing more drilling in the short term.
09:03What do you make of this?
09:05I personally think that is...
09:07Do you understand this or...?
09:08No, I mean, if you look at where we are today,
09:13my read is it is truly better to double down.
09:18By the way, there are differences between those two countries.
09:20Denmark is further advanced, also doesn't face the net congestion, as far as I understand it, that the Netherlands is
09:29facing.
09:30So, of course, there are always specificities that you need to deal with in a national context.
09:37But overall, there simply is no substitute than to fast forward.
09:43And again, that is that whole mix of electrification, of nuclear, of solar, that we so desperately need.
09:50And by the way, the Danes, but also the Swedes and the Finns have done an amazing job in the
09:54last couple of years in doing exactly that.
09:57I think the core question here is, can Europe secure its own energy?
10:03Is that really possible?
10:05How long does it take?
10:06And what is needed to do this?
10:09We absolutely can.
10:10Of course, we cannot do it in the next few years, right?
10:14Gas will continue to be a transition fuel for years to come.
10:19Energy demand, also because of what we see in terms of development of AI, will go up rather than down,
10:26even with all the energy efficiency measures that we'll probably have up our sleeves.
10:32But the more independent we become, the more homegrown we become, the less vulnerable we become.
10:38So even if you have a bit of a, let's say, long tail of fossil fuels, then that in any
10:46case is way better than the current situation,
10:48where we're just heavily dependent on the oil and the gas that we get from outside.
10:55We truly, and as I said it before, we are at the mercy of others.
10:59And of course, it was smart to get rid of Russian gas.
11:03But we replace that by, well, maybe a bit more renewables, but also by dependency on American LNG, Qatari LNG
11:12and LNG from others.
11:14Is that a completely safe bet?
11:17Well, I guess we have second thoughts about that, right?
11:20Just look at what is happening across the globe.
11:23And even those who might not get their LNG going through the Strait of Hormuz are still very vulnerable because
11:33these are global markets.
11:34Now, the overall political goal in this town has become improving European competitiveness.
11:43To what extent is this putting you and your portfolio under pressure?
11:51I mean, we just need to open the newspaper.
11:52We rarely read about climate issues because there's so much else going on.
11:57But how do you deal with this?
11:59Do you feel this?
12:01And how do you try to argue against it?
12:04It's really things that go hand in hand.
12:06Because if you think about competitiveness and you think about what are the veins of our industry, it's energy.
12:16And the reality is that our companies, and particularly, of course, heavy industry that are very dependent on energy,
12:23are being confronted with very high energy prices compared to the Americans, but also others.
12:30It's a competitive disadvantage.
12:33And that is because we have to import the stuff.
12:35We're paying more.
12:37And in many cases, European countries are also taxing more than maybe other nations.
12:44So that is a complicated mix.
12:46And that is exactly the reason why we need to fast forward this transition, where I'm absolutely with those companies,
12:54is that that alone, fixing the energy problem alone, is not going to be enough.
12:59We will need to do much more to embark on truly a single market for capital, for people, and so
13:06on.
13:07We need to radically simplify because, frankly speaking, we have made life too difficult for our companies.
13:13And what about the infrastructure?
13:16Because when we talk about transition, et cetera, infrastructure comes to mind.
13:22And I'm thinking of a charging station for cars, for instance.
13:25This is what everybody, every consumer in the EU feels.
13:30Now, it's still the case that I think three quarters of all charging stations in the EU are based in
13:35the Netherlands, Germany, and France.
13:38Why does it take so long?
13:40Why are the others just deaf?
13:43Or what's going on?
13:46You're absolutely right.
13:47We have more homework to do.
13:49And that shows that there is also clearly an opportunity, but also an obligation for member states to do more.
13:58Here's the good news.
13:59And indeed, the countries you were mentioning, I would add the Scandinavians to that list,
14:03that have the most electrified car park of all.
14:06Well, certainly Norway.
14:08Yeah, which is, let's say, not yet a member of the European Union.
14:12Let's not tease them too much.
14:13I'm a huge fan of the country, but they're also indeed, they have a truly electrified car park.
14:22What is the good news?
14:23If you look at the type of cars that now already are being put onto the market in terms of
14:28radius, in terms of quality of the engine, in terms of how quickly they can load,
14:37we are in a completely different dimension than we were some four or five years ago.
14:42And if I listen to experts, they're telling me, look, the best car that is, or the car with the
14:48longest radius that is currently being put on the market is maybe some 700, 800 kilometers, at least in testing.
14:55Maybe it's a bit less in reality.
14:58The number will only go up.
15:00Now, what they are telling me, and again, they are the experts.
15:04They're telling me, look, a thousand kilometers somewhere in the next five to 10 years will clearly come in sight.
15:10If that is the case, that gives you a completely different picture in terms of what your loading infrastructure would
15:19need to look like, because, of course, you would need more quantity, but you would not need it maybe at
15:25every corner of the street.
15:28So I think we are we're up for a lot of positive surprises in in this specific domain.
15:35OK, who says infrastructure also says grids.
15:39Where are we here right now?
15:41There's also some sort of, you know, problem.
15:44There's other grids strong enough.
15:47I mean, we have we have a an awesome amount of work out of us.
15:51Let's just be very honest.
15:53It's it's we're not nearly there.
15:55We need to invest billions and billions in the grids.
15:59And in my view, that will ask for public money.
16:02But I think we need to be unorthodox.
16:04We also need to allow semi-public or private money.
16:07think about pension funds and other and other large investors, because the amount of money we'll need is simply so
16:14large.
16:15Next to that, we need way more intelligence, maybe AI or other tools, because we're not making use of the
16:23electricity in the smartest possible way.
16:25And that will give you percentage points extra.
16:28All these things are known for a long time, right?
16:31But still, we're not making the progress that we want.
16:35We what we are.
16:37I think if you look at what we did in the last year, it need also seizing the opportunity with
16:44the package that we came out with two weeks ago,
16:46with the grids package that Juergensen launched in, I believe, December of last year, with actually each of these measures,
16:56we're taking steps.
16:57I think where you are right and where we need to be self-critical, we're not yet meeting the bar
17:04and much more is needed, right?
17:06So let's be as forward-leaning as we can, because every euro invested in this transition is well spent.
17:16Again, because we are so vulnerable.
17:19As every child knows, climate change ignores borders.
17:25Now, you mentioned Norway earlier.
17:28What are the EU's international partners in the fight against climate change?
17:33It's a range of groups.
17:35And by the way, let me echo what you're saying.
17:36It's one of the complicated things of climate change is that, indeed, it doesn't discriminate.
17:42If you were able to just fix it in your own backyard and then you would be off the hook,
17:47that would make things way easier, right?
17:51But that's simply not the case.
17:52The planet doesn't care where we pump stuff into the air.
17:57If it happens, we all are living in a place that is heated up with one specific problem for Europe.
18:05Europe is heating up more quickly than the other.
18:07So we have a disproportionate incentive to make sure that we don't do just our homework ourselves.
18:13We do it also with others.
18:16That is where the partners come in.
18:17And there are various groups.
18:20And we try to build bridges all over the world.
18:22But clearly, first, there is the group of, let's say, Norway, Canada, Australia, the UK, with whom we work very
18:30closely together, given that they are so like-minded.
18:33Secondly, we also work together very closely with our friends from Latin America, hence the conference of last week.
18:41And it is not a coincidence that there was a European and Latin American country that were organizing it.
18:47But also more broadly with the global south, if you think about the small islands, our friends in Africa, our
18:54friends in Asia, the success of the conference in Dubai that you just mentioned,
19:03at the heart of that was that we managed to create this supermajority that crossed the north-south divide.
19:10And that is, I think, the name of the game going forward.
19:12You did not mention our friends in the U.S. and in China, I guess it's a little more subdued.
19:20Well, I mean, and they're in different categories, right?
19:23Right. So, with the Americans, we worked exceptionally closely together, John Kerry in particular, in Dubai, in Baku with John
19:34Podesta, his successor.
19:37But the reality is that the Americans have checked out on this topic, and that is, I mean, it's very
19:43unfortunate.
19:44But I have to take the world as it is, not as I would like it to be.
19:49All right. Fascinating conversation.
19:51Wopke Hoogstra, EU Climate Commissioner.
19:53Thank you so much for your time.
19:54Thank you, sir. Thank you.
19:55Wopke Hoogstra, EU Climate Commissioner.
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