Teresa Ribera calls on the EU to move forward in its climate transition without penalising people

The third vice president of the Spanish Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, asked the European Union (EU) on Thursday to advance in its ecological transition to reduce polluting emissions with flexibility and taking into account citizens, so that they do not suffer energy costs.

Ribera participated this Thursday in “The State of the Union”, the conference organized every year by the European University Institute in the Italian city of Florence and whose twelfth edition is entitled “A Europe for the next generation?”.

Accelerating energy diversification

Ribera spoke at a panel dedicated to Europe’s carbon neutrality and energy independence and said that, with the war in Ukraine, the EU has understood that it must rapidly diversify its energy sources to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil.

“Now we must accelerate diversification,” Ribera said, while advocating “dealing with flexibility but keeping the (climate) targets set.”

“This transformation, also at a difficult time (like the current one), has to be completed and we have to take into account how to deal with social and environmental challenges,” he said.

“I think the reaction has been positive. We need to show unity, solidarity and more cooperation,” he added, recalling that any sanction the EU adopts against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine “has a cascade of effects on European borders and that can complicate the lives of some.”

“We need to be fair in how to distribute the costs of this response. Some messages can be contradictory. To advance in the energy transformation, more electrification, more efficiency, more renewables are needed… but if electricity has the same price as gas it is a bit contradictory, if people do not benefit from this transformation, they will not be able to get involved. There are social aspects that we have to take into account,” he justified.

The Florence conference, which began on Thursday and concludes on Friday, is attended by policy makers, but also by experts, academics and managers of companies from 40 countries, including the CEO of Enel, Francesco Starace, who criticized the eu’s short-term vision in energy investment and opted for more regasifiers on the continent to ensure gas supply in the short and medium term.

Starace said the EU needs to bet more on renewable energies, advance in its decarbonization and electrification, and favor investments to diversify the residual fossil fuels it needs until its energy transition is achieved.

The EU must adjust its climate plans

For her part, Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter stressed that the war in Ukraine “calls on all countries to respond in terms of humanitarian and military aid,” while managing the problem of escalating energy prices.

“This, in the short term, requires Member States to adjust their climate and energy plans that they had in mind,” but in the long term this crisis may represent “the opportunity to accelerate Europe’s energy independence” and move from “Russian oil and gas to renewable sources.”

The vice-president of the European Commission Vera Jourová took the opportunity to cite other challenges of the EU, such as dealing with some policies that are being implemented by countries such as Poland and Hungary and that may threaten the values of the European project.

“We have already expressed widespread concerns about the judicial reform implemented by the Polish government and numerous problematic aspects in Hungary. The European Commission is reacting with the instruments at its disposal,” he explained.

In this regard, he said that countries that do not comply with the principles of the community club could face the freezing of European funds, although that will depend on the member states that must cast their vote on the matter.

The second day of this conference on the EU will continue this Friday, and will feature the participation of the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell; the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who will intervene remotely, among others.

Source: EFE Green