Europe is a global leader in the green transition but also needs to make sure there are more resources to tackle the impact of unprecedented climate shocks, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday.
The world’s largest economies have pledged to transition to net-zero carbon emissions energy systems by 2050.
“We cannot focus so much on 2050 that we forget 2024,” Mitsotakis told the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Baku.
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“We need more resources to prepare to respond in time, in order to save lives and livelihoods and to help people and communities rebuild after disaster.”
With abundant sun and wind, Greece has more than doubled its renewable energy output since 2014 to account for about half of its power generation and says it is on track to shut all its coal-fired plants by 2028.
But it has been at the frontline of the climate change and has struggled to provide relief and repair damage following destructive floods and wildfires in recent years, which scientists link to global warming.
This year, the country had its hottest summer on record after a winter with little or no rain.
Mitsotakis said Europe accounted for a diminishing share of global emissions but was almost alone in defending the rules of free trade and should make sure that the energy transition will not hurt its economy.
“We need to ask hard questions about a path that goes very fast at the expense of our competitiveness, and a path that goes somewhat slower but allows our industry to adapt and to thrive. It is our responsibility to weigh these trade offs carefully,” he said.
Despite robust power generation from renewables in the summer, Greece had soaring wholesale electricity prices which it attributed to Europe’s internal power market distortions and insufficient power links with central Europe, and asked the European Union for an urgent response.
(Reporting by Angeliki KoutantouEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Andrew Heavens)
