Europe needs a system change to meet Green Deal, says EU chief

(EurActiv, 23 Oct 2020) Europe needs a “systematic approach” to meet the climate targets in the Green Deal and create a “fair and prosperous society”, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in the foreword of a new report on how to achieve the new goals.

“Europe has the potential to emerge from the current crisis to become a fairer, more prosperous, more sustainable and more resilient society,” von der Leyen wrote, adding that the green and digital transitions “will shape the social, economic, and ecological architecture of the continent for decades to come”.

The report, published on Friday (23 October), by The Club of Rome and advisory firm SYSTEMIQ, lays out a vision for how Europe can achieve its carbon neutrality target by 2050 and use the recovery from COVID-19 to create “a more prosperous, sustainable and resilient” economy.

“What we really need is an overhaul in the way we produce and consume in our economy and the way we live and work,” said Kurt Vandenberghe, European Green Deal Advisor to  President von der Leyen, at a talk run by EURACTIV.

“[The Green Deal] requires that we rethink our policies, that we rethink our ways of working and, above all, it requires that we dare to change our mental frame,” he said, calling it a “socio-economic agenda for modernisation”

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EurActiv, 23 Oct 2020: Europe needs a system change to meet Green Deal, says EU chief