“Our businesses need stability,” she said. “I don’t think it is going to be appealing for anyone willing to invest their money if one day we say ‘yes,’ the other day we say ‘no,’ that we change the time frames or parameters … That doesn’t work for anyone.”
That also involves setting a new, EU-wide 2040 climate goal so companies have certainty, she added. The Commission plans to propose legislation targeting a 90 percent cut in planet-warming emissions by that year.
“If we understand that in order to create and update a new golden age for the industry in Europe, there are two main drivers, which are the green revolution and the digital revolution, we need to create the conditions for these revolutions to happen,” Ribera said. “This means identifying where we want to be.”
That target, however, will come too late for the EU to meet the United Nations’ February deadline for submitting a new climate plan under the Paris Agreement, Ribera acknowledged — the first time a Commission official confirmed POLITICO’s reporting that the bloc would file its plan late. Last month, White House officials told POLITICO that the U.S. would likely release its plan before Trump takes office.
The EU needs to show it’s “complying with our own duties” by filing a plan, which will include a 2035 target, by the next global climate summit in November, Ribera said, but added that the bloc’s “complicated governance structure” stands in the way of a February submission.
“I’m optimistic on the possibility to come up with this in due time,” she said, “even if it is not February.”
As for the Thatcher photo, she quipped that now that the U.K. Labour Party was renationalizing the railways that the Conservatives once privatized, perhaps she would also hang a photo of the current British prime minister.
“We’ll get Keir Starmer over there,” she said.
