\u201cRenewable energy is not about tackling climate change, it\u2019s about economic growth and affordable and low energy prices,\u201d Austrian State Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Zehetner told POLITICO on the sidelines of the event.\u00a0Zehetner stressed however that Europeans wouldn’t be “blackmailed” by the U.S.<\/p>\n
Her comments reflect that independently of the U.S., Europe has itself moved away from the climate fervor that dominated Brussels policymaking in the first part of this decade. Still, despite some backsliding on green rules, the EU remains fundamentally in favor of strong policies to tackle climate change.<\/p>\n
Downplaying and dealmaking<\/p>\n
But officials said collaboration remained possible, and that European countries could work with the U.S. commercially to fill gaps in Europe’s energy mix, highlighting growing imports of U.S. liquified natural gas and collaborations on nuclear power.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s approach is to \u201cfind common ground with as many countries as possible,\u201d U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told POLITICO. \u201cFor example, [on] nuclear, we found common ground with the U.S., and that’s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finnish Energy and Climate Minister Sari Multala said countries should \u201cbuild on those things we have in common,\u201d saying collaboration with the U.S. \u201cwould be possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Greece\u2019s Deputy Energy Minister Nikos Tsafos, also present at the conference, said a growing Greek push<\/a> to transit U.S. LNG from its ports into neighboring countries was \u201creally important in bringing down gas prices\u201d and that it was just one prong in a broader diversification strategy that includes renewables.\u00a0He rejected<\/a> EU concerns that the U.S. could weaponize the gas flows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cRenewable energy is not about tackling climate change, it\u2019s about economic growth and affordable and low energy prices,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[5498,8838,2885,7321,27247,10036,3096,24138,969,28596,8857,580,8858,34041,246,79403,8863,1814,2917,958,61,8868,975,60,34082,10475,34077,28597,34005,6000,2850,97621,3400,3589,82,769,2846,1859,303,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-308059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-advocacy","9":"tag-buildings","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-coal","12":"tag-communications","13":"tag-crisis","14":"tag-data","15":"tag-diplomacy","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-ed-miliband","18":"tag-emissions","19":"tag-energy","20":"tag-energy-prices","21":"tag-energy-security","22":"tag-environment","23":"tag-fatih-birol","24":"tag-fossil-fuels","25":"tag-france","26":"tag-greece","27":"tag-growth","28":"tag-ie","29":"tag-imports","30":"tag-investment","31":"tag-ireland","32":"tag-lng","33":"tag-missions","34":"tag-natural-gas","35":"tag-net-zero","36":"tag-nuclear-power","37":"tag-oil","38":"tag-poland","39":"tag-ports","40":"tag-renewable-energy","41":"tag-russia","42":"tag-science","43":"tag-security","44":"tag-spain","45":"tag-sweden","46":"tag-united-kingdom","47":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}