E3G

Confidence in a low-carbon economy: John Ashton interview

By Chris Littlecott

For example, the economic debate about globalisation in its current form is largely about competition from countries like China. We also have issues like climate change and terrorism, which simply cannot be dealt with through an exclusively European decision-making process.

Today’s threats and opportunities needs to be engaged at the source. A lot of that engagement has to be at European level, and it needs to be an engagement of scale – an engagement on the part of what has become the world’s largest single market. If we are to have a chance of accelerating China’s transition to a low-carbon economy, it has to be an effort undertaken as Europe, rather than as individual member states. Harnessing the power of the world’s largest single market to the world’s fastest growing economy would create a transformational economic force felt globally.

I think that we need to develop a more outward-looking debate about Europe. And it needs to be a more self-confident debate. I think we’ve fallen into a mood of anxiety. Threats of terrorism, of climate change, of losing your job to competition from outside – all of these drive anxiety. Because of the anxiety that dominates our politics at the moment, we tend to underestimate our strengths, which lie in the social and institutional capital that’s embodied in the European project. Europe worries about losing jobs to China, but China worries about why it lacks the social safety nets that Europe has.

Speaking as a climate change ambassador, have you observed any positive changes in the European mindset?

There are some positive signs. The outcome of the European Council in March was extremely encouraging. It accomplished two things. Until now, the centre of gravity of elite opinion in Europe has been: “Climate change is, of course, a problem, but we need to be careful because strong policies to respond to it will undermine competitiveness.”
What’s happening now is the emergence of a new political synthesis, which says: “We need to be leading the global transition to a low-carbon economy if we hope to remain competitive.”

This also comes at a time when there is real concern about the widening gap between European governments and elites on one hand […] and European citizens on the other. Many people have difficulty seeing why the “European project” is necessary in order to address the needs that they have. One thing is very clear: that both climate security and energy security are causing a great deal of concern to European citizens. Polling evidence tends to say that [European citizens] would like to see governments do more to address energy and climate.

So here you have Europe responding to that challenge – Europe making a proposition to citizens which addresses these concerns – and offering to build a low-carbon economy before any other major economy builds it. This is a very significant shift of political gravity among European leaders.