EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra thinks reports of the death of Europe’s green agenda have been greatly exaggerated.
“There’s always a lot of talk about backlash,” Hoekstra told POLITICO’s Sustainable Future Summit on Tuesday. “That is, I think, one of the big misconceptions.”
The EU’s new climate goal for 2040, agreed by ministers last month, “is actually an acceleration, rather than a downgrade, of what we are having today,” he said.
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The EU’s approach to its environmental and climate rules has been placed under extreme pressure from a combined pushback from far-right parties, heavy industry and some leading members of Hoekstra’s own center-right European People’s Party.
