Have the article read by OpenAI (Beta). Please note that AI translations may take some time to process.EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, while unfortunate, is an opportunity for Europe to attract more investments in an interview with the European Newsroom (enr) published on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump’s messaging on climate protection means that “investments will be turning away” from the United States and hopefully towards the European Union, Jørgensen said.
“Climate change will not disappear, so somebody needs to step up when [others step] back, and that is a definite ambition of ours. It’s also an opportunity for us,” Jørgensen said.
The United States has pursued a radical shift on climate policy under Trump with the president rolling back regulations on the oil and gas sector to promote fossil fuel production. Trump also wants US allies to purchase more energy from America, including liquefied natural gas (LNG).
As the EU scrambled to ditch Russian oil and gas in the wake of the all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US became a major supplier to the bloc, drawing concerns that this energy relationship would add to the bloc’s existing dependency on the US for security and defence.
To avoid a scenario where a new major supplier could manipulate energy prices through supply restrictions for political goals, like Russia did in the past with pipeline deliveries of gas, Jørgensen pointed to EU reforms in market prices for energy and the bloc’s emphasis on long-term contracts when negotiating with suppliers.
“We are implementing more transparency in the way the gas market functions in Europe. We’re controlling it better,” Jørgensen said. “We have very clear rules on how the prices are to be set, that they are to fundamentally respect or rather reflect the difference between supply and demand. So the legal framework is there.”
He added: “Of course, we will be insisting that no matter which countries it is that we deal with, this is fundamentally a marketplace, and it is fundamentally something that needs to be done within the framework of a marketplace.”
The Commissioner added he would be willing to tighten rules to ensure transparency in the EU’s energy market should future issues arise.
US LNG supplies critical
Jørgensen however acknowledged the critical role of LNG supplies and the US would have in the EU’s economy for the future as there are very few alternatives to supply the bloc.
“Right now, the US is the second biggest gas supplier to Europe after Norway. That is very, very important for the parts of our societies that are not yet out of the dependency on gas,” Jørgensen said.
“It’s clear that in the future we will be gradually using less and less gas because that’s a part of decarbonising in our societies. But it’s also clear that even though it’s going fast in the right direction, we still have both industries and homes that are dependent on gas for some years in the future,” he added.
This article is published twice a week. The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr.