Speakers:
HANNES SWOBODA, president of the IIP and Club of Rome, Austrian Chapter, former MEP
FRANZ BAUMANN, climate expert at UN, visiting research Professor New York University
OLIVIA LAZARD, fellow at Carnegie Europe, director of peace consulting
Moderation:
ANGELA KANE, former Under Secretary General for Management, Vice-President of the IIP
Content:
The manifold crises the world and the EU are facing overshadow the urgent need for a common global approach towards one of the biggest challenges, the global climate crisis. The COP 25 in 2021 only was able to reach a minimal compromise while other buzzwords like the European Green Deal signal at least good intentions, but clear pathways how to reach envisaged goals are still widely missing. With the hope of diversification of energy supplies the hope of normalization in the future goes along. However, little debates are heard about the implications of the global climate crisis its consequences on energy supply and energy transformation and how this is all connected to geopolitics. While Russia used to be the biggest energy supplier to many European countries, Europe is also still depending on more than 90% on China when it comes to the supply of rare earths. There are manifold dependencies on other natural resources, metals, cobalt, etc. which are all essential in order to transform from fossil into renewable energies. The global world is facing multiple crises in the last years and the European Union seems to be unprepared to deal with all of them at the same time. While in 2015 first cracks in the unity of the European Union after the migration influx became visible, Brexit, the Covid-Pandemic and now the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine added additional pressure on the European Union. How could the EU or the International Community react to these challenges coherently? What are the links between environment, climate crisis and geopolitics and who are the main players in this field? These and other questions will be discussed by our experts in this discussion.