China dependence to make EU’s green transition more costly - Hoekstra
www.euronews.com
Hoekstra warns China dependence will make the EU’s green transition more costly, saying there is “no alternative” to levelling the playing field. #EuropeNews

…

Europe must accept higher short-term costs to reduce its dependence on China for clean-energy technologies, EU Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has told Euronews, warning that delaying action will make the strategic vulnerability harder and more expensive to unwind.

The EU should have confronted its reliance on China “five to ten years ago”, Hoekstra said, arguing that waiting longer would bring greater disruption and costs.

“But it will be much cheaper and much more to our advantage to do it now than be wishy washy and wait another five to 10 years,” the Dutch Commissioner said.

…

“This will stay with us for years to come, because the dependencies in many domains have simply become too large,” he said, describing the situation as a “dangerous and uncomfortable” vulnerability for both Europe’s climate ambitions and economic security.

…

Tensions [between the EU and China] have intensified as Brussels has taken measures to protect the European market, targeting Chinese companies over issues including illegal products, state subsidies and foreign investment. Beijing has threatened retaliation.

Hoekstra pointed to Europe’s solar industry as a warning of what can happen when domestic production loses out to heavily subsidised Chinese imports.

But the Commissioner went further, raising concerns about alleged Chinese interference and security risks involving critical infrastructure in Europe.

“Kill switches are being included in windmills. Espionage happens at a very high degree on European soil. Intellectual property theft in our most advanced companies happens on a weekly basis and on and on and on — that is something no government and the EU can simply allow,” he said.

…

The goal is … to ensure that Europe is no longer vulnerable to a single external supplier for technologies critical to its energy transition.

The challenge, Hoekstra said, is to build European capacity now — even if doing so comes with higher costs in the short term.

…

Archived

  • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.netEnglish
    41·
    6 days ago

    We need to solve carbon emissions 20 years ago.

    Why not heavily subsidize European solar, especially inverters while at the same time importing from China, especially solar cells and grid storage?

    Why is every one of these proposals “let’s fuck over the whole planet in order to prop up businesses that have lobbied us?” And never “let’s have the best of both worlds”?

    If they are worried about security, how about heavy subsidies for EU chipmakers to make and sell their chips in the EU. Currently, most of the fab capacity is in east Asia for chips needed for solar (ST, NXP, Nordic, and infineon). Many of them have a ton of fab capacity in the EU still, luckily, but all of their distribution goes through America and China. Even their own stores on their websites are not sold in the EU.

    Except NXP, the dutch chip giant, which has the vast majority of their capacity in east Asia AND all of their chips are distributed through Asia and america(so the Dutch being hypocritical yet again).

    Of how about, actually building and using unified, open source software platforms that connect locally to inverters and distribution components instead of relying on the cheapest ready-made manufacturer software? Oh wait, they don’t want to do that. That would require actual work and funding and not just grandstanding and writing a tariff on a piece of paper and letting the “poors” get fucked by it.

    I would bet ant amount of money that he has been bribed lobbied to speak on this by fossil fuel energy companies and auto companies. This is literally just a ploy to slow down renewable building and justify keeping energy prices sky high.

    How about requiring fucking parasite datacenters to actually offset their massive energy and building costs that we have to subsidize with energy infrastructure projects?

    It is never that, it is just grandstanding bullshit that harms everyone except the lobbyists, what a coincidence.