Can We Build Consensus on Climate Policy? with Susi Dennison [PODCAST]

Is the Green Deal dead or is it just resting? Does it make sense for Europe to create ambitious climate goals without the United States and China? And what should we know about climate-focused industrial partnerships of the European Union? Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Susi Dennison, a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), where she acts as Chief of Staff to the Director and leads the European Power programme as well as the organizational growth and transformation process. Her topics of focus include strategy, politics and cohesion in European foreign policy; climate and energy, migration, and the toolkit for Europe as a global actor.

Leszek Jazdzewski (LJ): Can the European Union build consensus on climate policy?

Susi Dennison (SD): We can take the question on a number of different levels. Fundamentally, what makes this such a difficult area at the moment within European societies – but also on the global stage more broadly – is that the sense of fear, uncertainty, and insecurity around the warming planet has not dissipated. The increasing evidence of the costs of climate change are becoming apparent in Europe with more frequent weather-related disasters, floods, and heat waves making the climate of different regions more complicated in certain years.

This is no longer a one-off phenomenon that countries see every five years, but it is rather becoming a regular dynamic in the European year. A recent report from the ECB and the University of Mannheim puts the estimates of climate-related extreme weather events at being 43 billion euros this year alone. The sense that this is now upon us, that this is no longer a question of planning for the future, is very much there for all Europeans. However, the divisive factor is that since the European Green Deal – which was one of the big headline initiatives of the first European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen – there is a growing sense among the European public that the costs of that transition (though the transition itself is necessary) are not being shared in an equitable way.

Therefore, we are seeing more and more contestation around the how, not the whether, to do the green transition. For me, where consensus or the idea of continued progress on decarbonization within Europe will come from its self-interest, because we are living in a world which is framed very much by transnationalism – a sort of the Trumpian approach of ‘nation first’ thinking about relationships on an issue-by-issue basis. And when it comes to the choices which European countries need to take for the green transition, these are things that make sense economically in a world which is decarbonizing.

Europe is no longer on the front foot as it was at the beginning of the European Green Deal, with the first-mover advantage. Now, it is competing with other economies which are moving forward in this direction for resources to get ahead in tech, to develop products in a competitive way – not only just on price, but also in terms of respect for carbon pricing (which we are increasingly seeing being factored into economic thinking). In this environment, the consensus on the need to keep moving down this path will come from the economic interest as much as the ideological need.

LJ: Is the Green Deal dead, or is it just resting?

SD: I do not think we are going to hear much talk about the Green Deal from either this European Commission or many of the national governments around the European Council table over the coming years. This, in itself, is problematic, because it is sending a mixed signal to companies about the extent to which European governments are committed to it.

Nevertheless, it is the same way as we saw migration frame mainstream thinking after the 2015 refugee crisis within Europe, and we saw central mainstream governments nervous about pursuing that proactively as an agenda. We know that we are in that space now with regards to the European Green Deal. As a result, the framing of this European Commission is very much about competitiveness and security, which are very much compatible with the objectives of the European Green Deal. All this will be likely done under that banner, so that we will see the measures which need to be taken continue to move forward.

Noteworthy, this is not necessarily a static picture. In terms of the Brussels politics over the last few weeks in the run-up to Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address, we saw a big pushback from the coalition which supported her election as the President of the Commission the second time around – from the Renew Party, from the Liberals, from the Socialists, and from the Greens.

Part of this pushback and the overall framing was that von der Leyen was not sticking to the promises that she had made to that coalition, but the other one of the pieces revolved around the Green Transition – and more specifically, that the promises were being broken in that area. This situation started to reveal the extent to which it may no longer be a clean consensus around prioritizing the Green Deal. However, there is also no consensus that it should be deprioritized either. A number of political groups feel quite strongly about that.

Moreover, we are also starting to see that among national governments as well. For example, the Danish presidency of the European Union has been pushing back quite hard about too purist an approach to the simplification agenda around regulation in the name of competitiveness, given that this could mean that we lose certain elements of progress that we have made on the green transition. With countries increasingly seeing the impact of climate-related disasters in their member states, there is a growing minority within the European Council that is questioning what we have come to understand as the ‘greenlash’. As such, over the coming year, we could start to see a climate cleavage around the Council table within European politics, whereby a kind of the new consensus – as it was put forward – is being overturned.

LJ: Why with so many climate-related disasters do we still see the greenlash happen and influence EU policy?

SD: It is a question of limited resources, as the European public sees it. When you look at public opinion polling almost everywhere across the EU, the top of list of citizens’ concerns is the cost of living, but, increasingly, the broader geopolitical security environment looms very large as well. Climate change is there, but it normally comes through depending on the country somewhere around fifth or sixth place in terms of the things that they are most worried about.

If you take that understanding that what people are looking for is economic growth to drive an improvement in living standards (which they are not seeing at the moment), and the fact that Europeans are increasingly pessimistic about the idea that the next generation is going to live more comfortably than the current generation, then this pessimism looms through. In that environment, they are clear-eyed about the fact that we have to make choices.

Of course, we do have to make choices with public spending. However, where there has been a failure of the political narrative is in making the case that in fact, the choices which we make to decarbonize make good economic sense, that green growth can deliver improvements in living standards, and that this can also be about dignity and increasing consumer choices in terms of transport and reliability of their energy supply in Europe, which is surrounded by a volatile geopolitical environment with regards to keeping the costs of heating homes affordable or, indeed (as is the bigger concern in parts of southern Europe now), keeping homes cool during the summer months. This is where European policymakers need to do more work to show that it is not either/or, and that decarbonization is part of the bigger security and competitiveness package.

LJ: Let us now focus on your home country. Since the United Kingdom has recently shut down its last coal plants, for many people it signified a successful transition towards renewables – and yet, the energy prices are rising, rather unexpectedly. What is the explanation for that phenomenon?

SD: If we want to answer the question of why the energy prices in the UK are rising, we need to look at the longer-term picture around the security of renewable energy that is being built up. Indeed, the United Kingdom has been relatively front footed with regards to certain forms of renewables, particularly offshore wind, and has been part of the development of nuclear-based energy. However, what we are currently facing in the UK at is a crisis around the ability to build up those long-term resources, which is perpetuating an ongoing reliance on the import of other sources.

Therefore, this is where Europe’s green transition – and, in this specific case, that the UK’s green transition – is deeply interconnected with its foreign policy relationships and other countries’ ability to build partnerships. The reason for that is the fact that the cost savings develop when there are economies of scale, when projects are developed at multi-country level in order to share technology to safeguard the supply of the resources and minerals that are needed to move the clean tech forward.

To some extent, the United Kingdom has suffered from a period of relative isolation after Brexit in terms of the thinking around this topic. This, however, seems to be changing. Since 2022, we have seen growing cooperation on the security dimension with European countries around the support for Ukraine, which is feeding through into cooperation also in other areas.

As a result, there is now a broader, pan-European conversation, which the UK is much more connected to. Nevertheless, we are still seeing a certain lag coming through, in part because of the fact that the UK has chosen to pull itself out of the international cooperation around this picture.

LJ: In your recent policy brief titled “The Power of Partnerships: European Climate Leadership with Less America”, you conclude that we have to acknowledge that there is an increasingly transactional nature of international relations. In light of this fact, you recommend engaging with a broad range of partners. What is in it for Europe in those potential partnerships?

SD: What is in it for us is a very clear need that as Europeans, we are not market leaders in terms of development and innovation in the cleantech space. At the moment, we are importing quite a lot of the tech that we need for solar and wind power from the big Asian player.

This is why there is a certain amount of concern. This is making the argumentation according to which we are effectively swapping the reliance in the ‘fossil fuel era’ on Russia for energy for reliance on China, Taiwan, South Korea and others in the ‘clean tech era’ too simple, because this, basically, argues that we swap one dependence for another kind of dependence. Together with my colleague, Mats Engströmem, we argue in our paper that Europeans need to, therefore, diversify, take more responsibility for their own energy transition, and start to build up the partnerships which allow them to move tech development forward, safeguards the access to the raw materials that they need for that, but also further up the supply chain as well in a broader set of relationships.

The paper builds on a series of dialogues that we set up between European thinkers and policymakers and counterparts in Latin America and a number of African countries. What we could see there is appetite on both sides if it is framed in terms of the interest on both sides. Where the conversation is just about Europe importing critical raw materials, understandably, from outside Europe’s perspective, this is not particularly attractive. But where the conversation is about building up partnerships around the development of new tech, Europeans importing further up the value chain than just simply the raw materials and crucially giving access to European markets and respecting the free trading environment (which is so embattled at the moment, with the trade war that President Donald Trump has inflicted on the world), then in that environment, many other partners can see a clear interest.

The other premise of the paper, which is important to keep in mind, is that just because Trump has moved the United States away from the Paris Agreement, away from decarbonization as a state policy goal, does not mean that the rest of the world has followed suit. Europe’s need in this area is very much understood and reflected in a range of other countries too. Therefore, it is about understanding that environment and that complex picture, and being willing to invest in a broader range of partnerships around, thus ensuring our own transition.

LJ: Does this mean that, even though the United States and China combined are responsible for about 45% of global emissions, it still makes sense for the EU and its partners to make these transitions anyway (even if it might not necessarily transform the perspectives for climate in general)?

SD: Yes, absolutely. We are no longer in an age where Europe has America as a partner for pushing other major players such as China to take the need for them to reduce their emissions more seriously. However, Europe still does have a role to play in what we might call ‘climate diplomacy’ in driving this process forward. This, however, has to be predicated on a clear and explicit commitment to its own green transition – and that is what is currently somewhat in question on the international stage (with the perceived setback of the second von der Leyen’s Commission and many other member states around this agenda, and the willingness to countenance in the trade talks – for example, with Donald Trump saying, ‘Well, if you just buy more gas and oil from the US, then we can talk!’). Europe needs to be more solid than that.

Still, Europe does have huge potential as a diplomatic actor in this space – as the larger single market, a player which is making choices which benefit other middle powers in terms of its own energy imports. Using its transactional power to the goal of climate diplomacy on the global stage can still have an impact on other players. Ultimately, it is about continuing to shift the needle towards emissions reduction and continuing to show that this makes economic sense now, and that it will continue to make economic sense in a world that is decarbonizing. Europe must play its part in that process.

LJ: Is politics the biggest obstacle? Can green policies that would be global in scope, but also beneficial to the main players within the EU be introduced against the growing greenlash, which we observe around Europe?

SD: We will not be able to enforce anything against the political will – if there is no permissive consensus from the European public, then this is not something which policymakers will be able to drive forward. Therefore, I would rather put it the other way around and say that it is the role of European decision makers to build that case in a way that demonstrates to the European public that the green transition remains part of achieving results on the things that they are worried about – the cost of living, international security, among others – and driving that forward.

If that kind of groundwork is done, then the big headline measures become possible on the international stage. We can achieve a place where Europe is a driving force in the global green transition again, even if it is no longer the first mover.

Read the Policy Brief: https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-power-of-partnerships-european-climate-leadership-with-less-america/

This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with Movimento Liberal Social and Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of.