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The EU is divided, climate action could provide unity
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on November 28, 2022
5 min readLast updated: February 3, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on November 28, 2022
5 min readLast updated: February 3, 2026
Dr. Nicolas Befort holds the Chair of Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development at NEOMA
Dr. Nicolas Befort holds the Chair of Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development at NEOMA Business School.
If the EU is to face the challenges of tomorrow, it must reduce tensions among its member states. In her 2022 State of the European Union address, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen pushed for the EU to relaunch its integration efforts through a convention to revise the European treaties and promote the climate agenda.
Revising the treaties presents an opportunity to rally all EU member states around a new objective. There is no question that the union has developed a number of cracks in recent years which need smoothing over.
Headline after headline has probed the potential fractures in the EU’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Relations between Brussels and Budapest soured over the summer. Concerns have been raised over the wisdom of Olaf Scholz’s trip to China. There are older, deeper divisions as well.
The EU has been at the heart of a tug-of-war between several northern countries, led by the Netherlands, and some of its southern members over economic policy. Critics took swipes at the union’s handling of the Greek debt crisis and there are long-standing concerns over the respect, or lack thereof, for democracy and anti-corruption measures in more than one member state.
Environmental policy has the potential to act as promising ground for creating unity, as there is a strong international consensus on the issue which, by its very nature as a global threat, necessitates cooperative action.
The fact that climate change is occurring, and that it is being driven by human interference with the atmosphere through industrial emissions, is a global consensus. The consequences of straying from the 1.5oC pathway outlined in the Paris Agreement, a cause for nail-biting around the world.
Pressure to deal with the climate threat is a familiar weight on the European Parliament’s shoulders, particularly following the success of green parties in the last European elections. Nevertheless, progress on sustainability issues continues to be viewed as secondary to economic and competition policy decisions.
With an opportunity to refresh itself on the horizon, the EU should consider the merits of making a firm commitment to making Europe the first ecological continent on the planet. This means it would be totally carbon neutral and its emissions would fall safely within planetary limits.
Such a target would reflect the gravity of President von der Leyen’s assertion that the EU’s current need for ecological transformation is comparable with the challenge of rebuilding Europe after World War Two. If one is to unite 27 different countries, one must project a vision that is suitably grand yet – and this is the crucial point – achievable.
However, it will take a high level of investment to create the necessary opportunities for innovation, without which Europe will fall short of its target, perhaps catastrophically so. President von der Leyen mentioned plans to spend €3 billion on the creation of a hydrogen bank. While this is a stab in the right direction, ultimately the is a failure in not casting the net widely enough. What if the technology doesn’t work?
Investors could see their finances lost and any countries that have become overly dependent on it could be brought to their knees. New technologies must be scaled up in stages – this takes money but it also takes time and a careful assessment of the risks. At the end of the day, it is impossible to say for certain whether something that works in a laboratory will continue to work if scaled up for widespread implementation across industries.
This hints at a broader problem. The way we think about energy production and sustainability projects needs to change. Instead of forming systems that rely on a single resource, we should be aiming to build on a diverse portfolio of technologies and raw materials, and what processes can be relocated to within the EU should be. In this way, we can become more autonomous and minimise the risk of outside countries holding the key to our national grids.
Renewables should no longer be thought of as supplements to fossil fuels, but rather as their replacements. 90 percent of emissions need to be cut by 2050 in order to keep to the 1.5oC pathway. Polluting industries must be ushered into extinction as quickly as it is safe to do so. The situation will not be helped by further economic crises.
Of course, coordinating economic policies will be at the core of any commitments to becoming more ecological. Policies should focus on transforming industries that have the potential to become sustainable, while at the same time dismantling those industries for which this is not an option. The emergence of new sustainable industries must be encouraged, and regulatory frameworks to oversee these changes put in place.
By thinking out a careful investment strategy and closely monitoring economic policies, it is possible that the EU can use the climate crisis to reaffirm member states’ commitment to the union and lay out a clear road map to ensure that countries continue to head in the same direction.
Climate change refers to significant changes in global temperatures and weather patterns over time, primarily driven by human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes.
Carbon neutrality means balancing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted with an equivalent amount of carbon removal, resulting in a net-zero carbon footprint.
Ecological transformation involves significant changes in practices and policies to promote sustainability and reduce environmental impact, often focusing on renewable energy and conservation.
An investment strategy is a plan designed to guide an investor's choices regarding how to allocate assets in order to achieve specific financial goals.
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