INTERVIEW: Climate commissioner says EU needs to be ‘street smart' in how it meets green targets

Euractiv

09-07-2025

The EU needs to be "pragmatic" and "street smart" when figuring out how to meet its self-imposed climate targets, even if it means outsourcing action to the developing world and tweaking previously agreed laws, Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told Euractiv in an interview.
Last week, the European Commission proposed a 2040 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 90% below 1990 levels – a full year after the deadline set in the EU Climate Law, which commits the bloc to achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
Hoekstra used the delay to build support among member states for the target, as political momentum behind the Green Deal – the hallmark of Ursula von der Leyen's first term – began to slow.
'There is exceptionally strong support for the true north of a 100% emissions reduction by 2050,' Hoekstra told Euractiv. At the same time, he acknowledged it was 'a very fair ask of many member states' to ensure climate policies are more tightly linked to competitiveness than before.
Hoekstra also said the many conversations he has had with European leaders and MEPs in recent months had convinced him there was still "overwhelming support" for "ambitious climate goals."
One outcome of this shuttle diplomacy, he said, was a recognition that the target would only be politically viable if governments were granted some flexibility, notably, the option to outsource part of their climate action to the developing world. Open to carbon credits Hoekstra said he has always been 'intellectually open' to the idea of using carbon credits – a concept codified at the UN level at last year's COP29 conference in Baku – to monetise climate action in the developing world.
'We know how not to do it,' he said, acknowledging that past offsetting schemes had been marred by accusations of greenwashing. It would only work if the system is 'credible, verifiable and additional,' he added.
'Humanity has pulled off, even in the way of climate action, way more complication things that planting trees, or CCS, or renewables at scale,' Hoekstra said.
Planting trees and deploying renewables are widely accepted solutions, especially in Europe, which lacks domestic fossil fuel reserves. Yet carbon capture and storage (CCS) remains controversial – and politically dormant in Brussels until recently.
Now, the oil and gas industry, long a backer of CCS, is required under EU law to jointly develop infrastructure - typically using depleted gas fields - capable of permanently storing 50 million tonnes of CO2 a year from 2030. The idea is that with nowhere to store it, no one will invest in carbon capture technology.
But industry players now say the target is unfeasible, prompting speculation that the Commission might revisit the rules as part of its regulatory 'simplification' push. Failing that, it might have to take action against petroleum firms for missing the target. Clear on tech neutrality 'Let's not run into hypotheticals now,' Hoekstra said, insisting the Commission maintains 'a completely neutral view' on which technologies will ultimately prevail.
'We very much embrace renewables. We also embrace nuclear,' he said. 'We embrace CCS,' he added, citing a €180 million EU-backed carbon capture project he recently visited in Sweden.
The EU's climate chief also rejected claims that the Commission's efforts to reduce red tape amount to deregulation or the dismantling of the Green Deal.
'We are in one of the largest transitions, certainly in the domain of energy, that humanity has ever gone through,' he said. 'We have a very clear true north, and we're also very clear on our overall approach.'
'But does it then make sense to be pragmatic and to be street smart on the how? I think it does.' Acknowledging the cost of transition Hoekstra also acknowledged the scale of investment and social costs tied to the planned energy transition – the EU's decarbonisation agenda he now describes as a combination of 'a climate strategy, competitiveness strategy, and an independence strategy'.
'Let's not make the mistake of confusing costs with investments,' he added, pointing to the €400 billion Europe would still spend annually to import oil and gas 'even if you kick out the Russians'.
'This only happens if [there is] the predictability that pension funds and other large investors are looking for,' he said. Hoekstra rejected the idea that amending recently adopted laws through a series of 'omnibus' proposals would undermine that very predictability.
Citing the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – the import tariff based on the carbon footprint of certain staple commodities – he noted that 90% of companies originally included had been removed from scope while it still captured 99% of emissions.
'Why did we include them in the first place?' Hoekstra asked. 'Couldn't it be true that our design was, maybe, good but not great...what do you then choose?'
'Do you course correct...or keep running against the same wall all the time?'
(de, jp)