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155
EU must accept short-term costs to reduce dependence on China for clean-energy tech to reduce strategic vulnerability as further delay will be more expansive, climate chief says (www.euronews.com)
submitted 1 day ago by tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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...

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.

...

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[–] Melchior@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It is not needed to catch up, but to have the skills to actually make for example solar panels, if the Chinese are unwilling to deliver. Most of that last for decades. If you have the skills and only need to increase production, that is not that much of a dependence. If you need to develop all of that from scratch, then it really is one.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

There are multiple promising new technologies to make solar panels. The EU should rather invest in those and benefit from cheap Chinese solar panels using the old technology in the mean time.