EU’s Green Deal threatens seismic shift
Proposals to achieve net zero promise to turn bloc’s economy upside down
Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European Commission, unveiled at the start of her tenure a 30-year project that aims at nothing less than the total transformation of Europe’s economy into a zero-carbon and sustainable system that will help achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The headlines are bold: to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; to build a ‘circular’ economy that uses fewer resources and recycles and reuses more; to develop climate-neutral transport systems; to ‘green’ the agricultural sector; to double or triple the rate of building renovation across the bloc; to eliminate toxins emitted during production; and to reverse biodiversity lo
Also in this section
12 March 2026
Role of world’s largest carbon cap-and-trade market under scrutiny as war in Iran threatens to drive EU energy costs to unsustainable levels
10 March 2026
Europe urgently needs to bring more projects to FID, as CCS investors warn they might divert capital to faster-growing regions
9 January 2026
A shift in perspective is needed on the carbon challenge, the success of which will determine the speed and extent of emissions cuts and how industries adapt to the new environment
2 January 2026
This year may be a defining one for carbon capture, utilisation and storage in the US, despite the institutional uncertainty
