00:00Moving on, after a summer of dramatic wildfires and an intense heatwave across the continent,
00:05the EU Climate Chief, Wubke Hoekstra, is calling for more investment in climate prevention.
00:10He says it's better to pay up front than fix the damage later.
00:14Speaking exclusively to Euronews' Europe editor, Maria Taddeo, he started by addressing that question
00:19of whether Brussels is taking climate change seriously enough. Take a look.
00:23What we have been crystal clear about as a commission is that there is no easy way out
00:29and that there is no alternative for continuing with our climate ambition.
00:34What we have added to that is that it is imperative that we marry, bridge climate action with competitiveness and
00:42with independence.
00:43What do I mean by that? You know, fully continue with climate action,
00:47making sure that we also enhance the competitiveness in Europe.
00:51We see that, for example, in Finland, Denmark and Sweden that is working very well
00:56and we marry this to independence because we don't want to outsource this transition to the Chinese.
01:03There's a big debate, of course, going into that October deadline from the European Commission and China.
01:09We've heard from the head of the commission being unusually tough,
01:12saying the daily deficit cannot continue like this and the commission needs to work to get a better deal by
01:18October.
01:18Are you confident she can get a deal?
01:20And she is fully right. And this is this is something that we that we regret.
01:28This is not something that we have sought.
01:30But it has been China that has been flooding Europe for years with heavily state subsidized projects.
01:37It has been China that has been using critical role materials as choking points.
01:43It has been China that has not been playing by the rules of international trade.
01:49So we have no no alternative to make sure that we level these things out and we do respond.
01:55But do you have the tools and at the same time the political courage?
01:59Because and I have to be fair, it's not so much the commission on this, but yes, the capitals.
02:03We've seen it repeatedly. They are too scared to put China on a summit conclusion.
02:07The harsh reality is that we should have faced this five to ten years ago.
02:12So now it will come with more disruption, with more friction, with more costs to basically make sure that we
02:19that we that we change course.
02:20But it will be much, much cheaper and much, much more to our advantage to do it now than be
02:28wishy washy and wait another five to ten years.
02:30Even if it means in October there is a risk that there is no understanding and therefore the European Union
02:35will have to respond or look weak.
02:37Look, it's it's this is not the moment to go into all sorts of of of hypotheticals about what happens
02:42if it if it's if you say the rebalancing is absolutely needed.
02:46This is and this will this will not be just one cliff edge moment.
02:51This will stay with us for years to come because the dependencies in many domains have simply become too large.
02:57And that is already dangerous and uncomfortable with the most benevolent of counterparts.
03:04And the reality is, and it's something I regret, that China has not acted in the way it should have.
03:11Meaning in these.
03:12It has flooded the marketplace with heavily, say, state subsidized products.
03:18The solar industry in Europe has been wiped out.
03:21And that's just one example.
03:23Kill switches are being included in in windmills.
03:27Espionage happens at a very high degree on European soil.
03:31Intellectual property theft in our most advanced companies happens on a weekly basis and on and on and on and
03:39on.
03:39And that is something no government and also the union simply can allow.
03:43When you head into the fall and the winter, have you lost hope that we're going to get any normality
03:48around the Strait of Hormuz?
03:49The reality is that if you are 80 percent dependent on your gas imports and 95 percent dependent on your
03:54oil imports, you just have a very bad hand.
03:58And the only way out of this nightmare is make sure that we produce more clean, dirt cheap European energy
04:06here.
04:07And that means more nuclear, more solar, more electrification, more wind, all of that on European soil.
04:13That's the only way out.
04:15And that is what we need to do and where we put our money on.
04:18And just as a final point, I ask you about the Strait of Hormuz, because at the G7 right before
04:21the summer, there was an expectation or a hope that President Trump had a deal and that we would see
04:26the cargo ships moving.
04:28That is not what we're seeing on the ground at all.
04:30How does that factor into a European winter?
04:33Well, first on that, on the assessment, I think we have seen that movie some six, seven, eight, nine times
04:39that that we we got statements that it was over or almost over.
04:45And then it wasn't.
04:47So I would be cautious to make any prediction about the very near future.
04:55Again, in the long term and in the media term, by far our best bet, by far our best bet
05:00is making sure we move to a completely different energy system.
05:05And that is where the money should be going in the short run.
05:08Indeed, we do have the obligation and we do need to do as much as we can to make sure
05:12we fill the storages.
05:14We can do that.
05:15Our gas comes primarily from the U.S. and from Norway.
05:18OK, that makes it slightly easier.
05:20But of course, it is a global market.
05:21So there is a fight for this gas potentially coming to us as well.
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