Europes plan to become the first carbonneutral continent Ursula von der Leyen
Transcriber: TED Translators Admin
Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
Fighting climate change has become
the greatest responsibility of our times.
And this is why in Europe,
we have set our objective:
to become the first
carbon-neutral continent by 2050.
This means leading an entire continent
towards transitioning to clean energy,
reinventing our infrastructure,
and much, much more.
It may sound abstract, and it sounds huge.
And yes, it’s actually both.
And it is also possible.
Why?
In the European Union,
we have a good record
of turning ambitions into successes.
We are a political and economic union
with 27 countries
and the total population
of 450 million people.
On the ashes of two world wars,
we have secured lasting peace among us.
From a divided continent,
we have created a union without borders.
And I strongly believe
we can also achieve our next challenge:
becoming the first
carbon-neutral continent.
When I became president
of the European Commission,
I sent a clear signal.
In the first two weeks,
I tabled the European Green Deal.
This European Green Deal
is both our vision
for a climate-neutral continent
and a very dedicated
road map to this goal.
It is 50 actions for 2050,
ranging from the first-ever
European climate law,
to circular economy,
to a biodiversity strategy,
planting trees,
protecting precious nature and animals,
recycling and waste management,
just to name a few.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit,
we resolved not to let
our objective be derailed.
The economic and social crisis
created by the pandemic
cannot be an excuse
to postpone the transition
towards a cleaner and healthier future.
On the opposite,
they create an additional accelerator
to mobilize and to move ahead.
Of course, not everyone agreed.
Some in the industry
told us it was impossible
to remain competitive
under these new constraints.
Some unions were afraid jobs would be lost
and workers forgotten.
Some politicians said
it was not realistic.
We listened to them,
but we also listened
to other facts and arguments:
the large international support
to the Paris Agreement,
science with robust data,
and more data every year,
the evidence of climate
shifting all around us.
We all know it by now:
glaciers melting, forest fires,
more extreme weather events.
And this is just the beginning.
We saw the prospect of many new jobs
created by the transition;
European citizens,
who, in their overwhelming majority,
consider that climate change
is a very serious problem;
our youth demanding
action for their future,
and rightly so.
Building on this, in September 2020,
we announced we would go one step further.
We moved from a 40 percent reduction
of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
to an at least 55 percent
reduction by 2030.
We are taking this bold
commitment for two reasons.
First, we already know
that we need to push further
if we’re serious about reaching
our 2050 objective,
which we are.
And second, the more we progress,
the more we rally.
Our 2030 and 2050
time lines are ambitious.
They are also necessary.
Solving climate change
will help solve a host of other problems.
Ignoring it will only precipitate them,
as we see with the link
between the loss of biodiversity
and zoonotic viruses like the coronavirus.
I know some are concerned
with this transition,
and I want to tell them
these concerns are legitimate.
But we have the knowledge,
we have the technology,
we have now the resources
to accompany this change
and make this transition just.
We are directing our recovery
in this direction.
If we get it right,
a third of our recovery money,
called Next Generation EU,
and of our long-term budget
will go to climate goals
and climate projects.
And this is more than 600 billion euros.
Now, addressing climate change
will need more than politicians
and more than a continent.
States, companies,
cities, citizens everywhere
need to move in the same direction
and to sustain their action
over the long term.
The European Union is open to cooperate
with anyone who’s ready
to engage in this journey.
Fixing climate change
calls for everyone’s action every day.
You can count on me.
I count on you.
Thank you.