EU climate chief candidates win lawmakers' backing

The European Parliament's environment committee backed former Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra to be the EU's next head of climate change policy on Wednesday after lawmakers won extra promises from him to strengthen green measures.

The European Parliament's environment committee backed former Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra to be the EU's next head of climate change policy on Wednesday after lawmakers won extra promises from him to strengthen green measures. Hoekstra and Maros Sefcovic, who is the nominee to lead overall coordination of European Union green policies, both secured approval from at least two-thirds of the committee.

Committee chair Pascal Canfin said lawmakers had sought "a clear commitment to keep on delivering on the Green Deal", referring to Europe's overall climate and environment policies. Lawmakers won enough, but not all, of what they wanted, Canfin added.

Hoekstra would be the head of climate change policies. Sefcovic would sit above him and coordinate all overall green policies - on climate, energy, transport, agriculture and environment. Each candidate had failed to pass a parliamentary hearing earlier this week, but convinced lawmakers after Hoekstra made extra pledges, including to disclose how much EU money is spent on fossil fuel subsidies and to take a firmer line at U.N. talks on phasing fossil fuels out.

In a document shared with lawmakers on Wednesday and seen by Reuters, Sefcovic also promised new EU limits on microplastic pollution and animal welfare rules this year, after some lawmakers accused Brussels of trying to quietly shelve the rules. But he failed to say if and when Brussels would deliver promised restrictions on harmful chemicals - suggesting they will be buried at least until after EU elections next June.

That pleased some centre-right lawmakers who said they backed ambitious climate measures, but feared adding more nature and chemicals measures on top could overburden industries. "There is sometimes a trade off," German lawmaker Peter Liese said.

The candidates still need formal approval from a majority of the full EU Parliament - in a vote on Thursday that some lawmakers said is likely to pass, given the committee's backing. Europe's green agenda is facing increased increased political pushback, with some governments and lawmakers resisting proposals that raise costs for voters.

The new EU green chiefs must walk a political tightrope between those concerns, and green and left-leaning lawmakers' demands for urgent action to curb the CO2 emissions fuelling disastrous extreme weather. Hoekstra promised to try to ensure the EU sets a target to slash its net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% by 2040, and push at the UN's COP28 climate summit in November for a phase out of all fossil fuels.

That would put Europe at odds with oil-and-gas-producing nations that want to use technologies to "abate" - meaning capture - the emissions from burning fossil fuels, rather than ending the use of the fuels themselves.

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