Political cowardice hindering Europe’s climate efforts, says EU’s green chief
Teresa Ribera says effects of crisis are becoming increasingly obvious but not translating into proper action.
Political cowardice is hindering European efforts to face up to the effects of the climate crisis, even as the continent is pummelled by a record-breaking heatwave, the EU’s green transition chief has warned.
In an interview with the Guardian, Teresa Ribera said that although the effects of the climate emergency were becoming increasingly obvious, they were still not translating into proper action. (...)
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Photograph: Salas/EPA.
Ribera said there was still a long way to go when it came to readying infrastructures and urban environments for the realities of the emergency.
A major part of the problem, she added, was that some political parties “continue to insist, quite vehemently, that climate change does not exist”, or else say that taking decisions to adapt to environmental realities is too expensive.
“Sorry, but it’ll be much more expensive if we don’t act,” said Ribera, the executive vice-president of the European Commission for clean, just and competitive transition and a former Spanish environment minister. “We all know that.” (...)
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