The climate threat|Global challenges

 

Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron during a dinner in Hamburg. Markus Schreiber / AP  

 

The climate threat|Global challenges

Macron and Scholz start anew - agree on green electricity

 

French President Emmanuel Macron has had "very encouraging" talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the European energy reform that the two countries previously disagreed on, Reuters reports.  

 

The dispute has been about what role nuclear power should play in the EU's energy supply. France wants to invest more in nuclear power, while Germany wants to phase it out.  

 

But Macron now says that the countries agree that the most important thing is to steer Europe in a carbon-neutral direction.  

 

- It would be a historic mistake to lose ourselves in small conflicts just because one person prefers nuclear power and the other prefers renewable energy, he says.  

 

Frans Timmermans. Pedro Pardo / AP  

 

Former EU summit: Must stand up to the climate betrayal of the right 

 

The EU's former climate commissioner Frans Timmermans has entered the battle for the Dutch voters before the elections in November. He is now calling on the European left to stand up against the right's "astounding" setback in terms of climate policy, The Guardian reports.  

 

Timmermans, who leads a newly formed red-green coalition in the Netherlands, opposes right-wing parties' arguments that environmental reforms are "too costly". He cites British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as an example. For example, Sunak has chosen to postpone the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers as a way to counteract the high cost of living in the country.  

 

- Contradiction between social justice and climate justice is exploited by the right and divides the left, says Timmermans.  

 

He himself has promised to reduce Dutch greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by 2030, if he wins the election.  

 

Ukrainian coal miner. Evgeniy Maloletka / AP  

 

Close to a million jobs are expected to disappear in the coal industry 

 

Close to a million jobs are expected to disappear in the coal industry globally until 2050 as the energy form is phased out, the environmental organization Global Energy Monitor writes in a report.  

 

The organization urges politicians to also take into account coal miners and local communities where the economy is built around the mines, as countries switch to fossil-free.  

 

Among other things, Spain is highlighted as a good example where they try to plan for the miners' future when the coal mines are closed down.