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EU to Gift Weaker Climate Targets to Car Industry in Return for No Commitments
(cleantechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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Sounds like a rather poor deal.
It is if looked at in isolation.
Consider the context though. The EU is under direct political attack from a fascist enemy through both propaganda and direct threats.
Causing thousands to be laid off in a time of global turmoil is NOT going to help prevent the likes of AfD and FN taking power. It would in fact garner them votes. Couple that with the US deliberately starting an economic war and this is sub optimal but necessary if the EU is to survive the fascist rise.
Well
Where did you get that idea?
I agree, all of those are good approaches which is, presumably why VdL has made several announcements about defence spending in the last week (โฌ800bn euro or something today - only saw headline havent read it yet).
Europe does have petroleum (although technically EU doesn't) both Scotland & Norway have a fair bit so they don't HAVE to buy Russian or American, and Australia & Canada are definitely still allied. Middle east are dodgy but most of them aren't part of the fascist conspiracy.
The problem with the last point is the same reason it's hard to get a soldier in a war zone to quit smoking, if you're imminently likely to get shot, worrying about lung cancer down the line is hard to focus on.
I think we definitely need to push hard to decarbonise, but not at the expense of being dead before getting there. Particularly not when the US is actively seeking to reverse its climate change efforts and recarbonise.
Which is great, except they can't produce much more than they already do, especially Norway. If Norway weren't tapped already, then e.g. Germany would most definitely buy a lot more gas there rather than expensive LNG from the US/Qatar or semi-sanctioned LNG from Russia. But it's simply not possible.
And sure, even Germany has some untapped gas reserves, but besides the environmental hazards through fracking, those reserves are projected to last for a total of 20 years of the current level of consumption in Germany.
If the EU were to stick with its current oil/gas consumption, the vast majority of said oil/gas would necessarily have to be imported from outside the EU.