No space to keep using fossil fuels, says Hoekstra in first speech as EU Commissioner

The world must agree to say goodbye to fossil fuels at the upcoming climate summit, said the new European “climate envoy” Wopke Hoekstra. Many other countries want to leave room for future use in exchange for capturing carbon emissions, but Hoekstra sees no point in that.

China and many oil producing countries do not yet want to phase out oil, gas, and coal. They believe they can continue to utilize the resource for years to come if they pay compensation for the carbon dioxide caused by that usage. Hoekstra also recently seemed to want to only limit the use of fossil fuels without compensation.

But the new European Commissioner for Climate wants to get rid of using all fossil fuels and not just “unabated” or uncompensated fossil fuels, he said upon arrival for consultations with the climate ministers of the European Union countries.

“That’s what I’ll strive for. Period.” He also said carbon capture and storage should be reserved for “very specific sectors that would otherwise not be able to continue.”

Convincing all countries to commit to this goal will be quite the task at the summit in Dubai at the end of November, Hoekstra admitted. Mutual tensions over the war against Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East are making it even more challenging to get the world on the same page.

“But we have no choice. If we don’t do enough, the planet will boil over.”