Speeches

Madam President! The timing couldn't be worse. We are facing perhaps the most decisive climate summit ever. We have the ambitious package of legislation known as the Green Deal and we are already behind schedule. There are many explanations for the rising energy prices that we are discussing here today, and I understand the concerns very well. The problem is that there is a lack of green electricity. We have not expanded with renewable energy in time, just as we have not been good enough to save energy, including in all the buildings. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy we know today. It is much cheaper to produce green power from wind turbines and solar cells than it is from coal and gas. Therefore, the long-term answer to the short-term challenges we face is to build out - and in a hurry. But then again, we need to get the permits we need to produce more renewable energy. If we do not, then we will not succeed, either with our climate goals or with making Europeans safe, secure and warm on their way into the cold winters.

Mr President! The IPCC report is a shocking read. Even in the most optimistic scenario, where we achieve zero emissions by 2050, warming can actually have disastrous consequences for humanity, and we must and must respond to that. We are already experiencing these extreme weather changes. Every year brings more extreme weather than the year before: more floods, forest fires, droughts, prolonged heatwaves and radical changes are needed. And the Commission's Green Deal and Fit for 55 are good and right steps, and that is actually the least we can do. I think it is part of a debate like the one we have today to remind ourselves of the great demands it makes in order to get it through: Great demands on the Council, on the Commission and on ourselves in this House. So let us remember that action when it is now that we really have to get to work, because action is needed here and now. It's the least we can do.

Mr President! The so-called Connection Europe Facility is a really important and concrete tool in our green transition. Just as the so-called trans-European energy networks are crucial to the EU's ambitions for a truly fossil-free society. We need more green power, and we need more green power to flow across national borders. For example, when wind blows on the North Sea and wind turbines spin, then that power must be able to be transported across Europe, beyond national borders, and we simply do not do that well enough today. We do not have a real internal energy market, and we must have one. Just recently, the International Energy Agency reminded us that more cross-border cooperation is needed if we are to fight climate change. I think we have reason to be happy today. The CEF and TEN-E are crucial instruments for the green transition. It ensures more sector coupling, more integration, more competition. I am glad that we have negotiated this so that we can get even more impetus for the green transition.