The signing by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday 28 March of the executive order undoing his predecessor’s climate strategy and boosting coal extraction was given a very chilly reception by the European Union, which sees this anti-Clean Power Plan offensive as a step backwards that is difficult to reconcile with the Paris Agreement on climate.
Expressing his regret at this decision, Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete refused to give in to pessimism, stating: “Now, it remains to be seen by which other means the United States intends to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement”. As early as Tuesday evening, he made it clear that, whatever the US does, others – with the EU and China leading the way – are determined to move forward.
“Others may roll back, but EU and China will forge ahead with the Paris Agreement and the clean energy transition”, he tweeted from Beijing, where he met China’s Special Representative on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua (see EUROPE 11756).
“A new climate era has begun, and the EU and China are ready to lead the way”, he stated.
In the course of this official visit, the commissioner will also hold talks with Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang, Director of the National Energy Administration (NEA) Nur Bekri and Vice-Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Zhang Yong.
In a press release, Jo Leinen MEP (S&D, Germany), calling for the EU and China to take the leading role, urges the two to “take the Paris agenda ahead and put the US administration under pressure”.
Taking the view that “Trump is on a destructive path”, he warns that “sooner or later, the US economy and society will face painful consequences of Trump’s old-fashioned energy policy”. He argues that “coal, oil and gas are energy sources of the past. Promoting fossil energy is an attack on the future of our planet. This is not a choice of common sense, but of ignorance”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)