LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer usually goes out of his way not to annoy Donald Trump. So he better hope the windmill-hating U.S. president doesn’t notice what the U.K. just did. In a fillip for the global offshore wind industry, Starmer’s government on Wednesday announced its biggest-ever down payment on the technology. It agreed to price guarantees, funded by billpayers to the tune of up to £1.8 billion (€2.08 billion) a year, for eight major projects in England, Scotland and Wales. The schemes have the capacity to generate 8.4 gigawatts of electricity, the U.K. energy department said — enough to power 12 million homes. It represented the biggest “wind auction in Europe to date,” said industry group WindEurope. It’s also an energy strategy that could have been tailor-made to rankle Trump. The U.S. president has repeatedly expressed a profound loathing for wind turbines and has tried to use his powers to halt construction on projects already underway in the U.S. — sending shockwaves across the global industry. Even when appearing alongside Starmer at press conferences, Trump has been unable to hide his disgust at the very sight of windmills. “You are paying in Scotland and in the U.K. … to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” he said, sitting next to Starmer during a visit to his Turnberry golf course last year. The spinning blades, Trump complained, would “kill all your birds.” At the time, the prime minister explained meekly that the U.K. was seeking a “mix” of energy sources. But this week’s investments speak far louder about his government’s priorities. The U.K.’s strategy — part of a plan to run the British power grid on 95 percent clean electricity by 2030 — is a clear signal that for all Starmer’s attempts to appease Trump, the U.K. will not heed Washington’s assertions that fossil fuels are the only way to deliver affordable bills and secure supply. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Starmer’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour party. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Pool photo by Justin Tallis via Getty Images While not mentioning Trump or the U.S., he said the U.K. wanted to “stand on our two feet” and not depend on “markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.” WIND VS. GAS The goal of the U.K.’s offshore wind drive is to reduce reliance on gas for electricity generation. One of the most gas-dependent countries in Europe, the U.K. was hit hard in 2022 by the regional gas price spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government ended up spending tens of billions of pounds to pay a portion of every household energy bill in the country to fend off widespread hardship. It’s a scenario that Miliband and Starmer want to avoid in future by focusing on producing electricity from domestic sources like offshore wind that are not subject to the ups and downs of global fossil fuel markets. Trump, by contrast, wants to keep Europe hooked on gas — specifically, American gas. The U.S. National Security Strategy, updated late last year, states Trump’s desire to use American fossil fuel exports to “project power.” Trump has already strong-armed the European Union into committing to buy $750 billion worth of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a quid pro quo for tariff relief. No one in Starmer’s government explicitly named Trump or the U.S. on Wednesday. But Chris Stark, a senior official in Miliband’s energy department tasked with delivering the 2030 goal, noted that “every megawatt of offshore wind that we’re bringing on is a few more metric tons of LNG that we don’t need to import.” The U.K.’s investment in offshore wind also provides welcome relief to a global industry that has been seriously shaken both by soaring inflation and interest rates — and more recently by a Trump-inspired backlash against net zero and clean energy. “It’s a relief for the offshore sector … It’s a relief generally, that the U.K. government is able to lean into very large positive investment stories in U.K. infrastructure,” said Tom Glover, U.K. country chair of the German energy firm RWE, which was the biggest winner in the latest offshore wind investment, securing contracts for 6.9 gigawatts of capacity. A second energy industry figure, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the U.K.’s plans were a “great signal for the global offshore wind sector” after a difficult few years — “not least the stuff in the U.S.” The other big winner was British firm SSE, which has plans to build one of the world’s largest-ever offshore wind projects, Berwick Bank — off the coast of Donald Trump’s beloved Scotland.

It’s been a decade since the U.S. and Europe pushed the world to embrace a historic agreement to stop the planet’s runaway warming. The deal among nearly 200 nations offered a potential “turning point for the world,” then-U.S. President Barack Obama said. Eventually, almost every country on Earth signed the 2015 Paris Agreement, a pact whose success would rest on peer pressure, rising ambition and the economics of a clean energy revolution. But 10 years later, the actions needed to fulfill those hopes are falling short. The United States has quit the deal — twice. President Donald Trump is throttling green energy projects at home and finding allies to help him undermine climate initiatives abroad, while inking trade deals that commit countries to buying more U.S. fossil fuels. Europe remains on track to meet its climate commitments, but its resolve is wavering, as price-weary voters and the rise of far-right parties raise doubts about how quickly the bloc can deliver its pledge to turn away from fossil fuels. Paris has helped ingrain climate change awareness in popular culture and policy, led countries and companies to pledge to cut their carbon pollution to zero and helped steer a wave of investments into clean energy. Scientists say it appears to have lessened the odds of the most catastrophic levels of warming. On the downside, oil and gas production hasn’t yet peaked, and climate pollution and temperatures are still rising — with the latter just tenths of a degree from the tipping point agreed in Paris. But the costs of green energy have fallen so much that, in most parts of the world, it’s the cheapest form of power and is being installed at rates unthinkable 10 years ago. World leaders and diplomats who are in Brazil starting this week for the United Nations’ annual climate talks will face a test to stand up for Paris in the face of Trump’s opposition while highlighting that its goal are both necessary and beneficial. The summit in the Amazonian port city of Belém was supposed to be the place where rich and poor countries would celebrate their progress and commit themselves to ever-sharper cuts in greenhouse gas pollution. Instead, U.S. contempt for global climate efforts and a muddled message from Europe are adding headwinds to a moment that is far more turbulent than the one in which the Paris Agreement was adopted. Some climate veterans are still optimists — to a point. “I think that the basic architecture is resistant to Trump’s destruction,” said John Podesta, chair of the board of the liberal Center for American Progress, who coordinated climate policy under Obama and former President Joe Biden. But that resistance could wilt if the U.S. stays outside the agreement, depriving the climate movement of American leadership and support, he said. “If all that’s gone, and it’s gone for a long time, I don’t know whether the structure holds together,” Podesta added. Other climate diplomats say the cooperative spirit of 2015 would be hard to recreate now, which is why acting on Paris is so essential. “If we had to renegotiate Paris today, we’d never get the agreement that we had 10 years ago,” said Rachel Kyte, the United Kingdom’s special climate representative. “But we can also look to these extraordinary data points, which show that the direction of travel is very clear,” she said, referring to growth of clean energy. “And most people who protect where their money is going to be are interested in that direction of travel.” THE PARIS PARADOX One thing that hasn’t faded is the business case for clean energy. If anything, the economic drivers behind the investments that Paris helped unleash have surpassed even what the Paris deal’s authors anticipated. But the political will to keep countries driving forward has stalled in some places as the United States — the world’s largest economy, sole military superpower and historically biggest climate polluter — attacks its very foundation. Trump’s attempts to undermine the agreement, summed up by the 2017 White House slogan “Pittsburgh, not Paris,” has affected European ambitions as well, French climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana told reporters late last month. “I have never seen such aggressivity against national climate policy all over because of the U.S.,” said Tubiana, a key architect of the Paris Agreement. “So we are really confronted with an ideological battle, a cultural battle, where climate is in that package the U.S. government wants to defeat.” The White House said Trump is focused on developing U.S. oil and engaging with world leaders on energy issues, rather than what it dubs the “green new scam.” The U.S. will not send high-level representatives to COP30. “The Green New Scam would have killed America if President Trump had not been elected to implement his commonsense energy agenda,” said Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson. “President Trump will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries.” Trump is not the only challenge facing Paris, of course. Even under Obama, the U.S. insisted that the Paris climate pollution targets had to be nonbinding, avoiding the need for a Senate ratification vote that would most likely fail. But unlike previous climate pacts that the U.S. had declined to join, all countries — including, most notably, China — would have to submit a pollution-cutting plan. The accord left it up to the governments themselves to carry out their own pledges and to push laggards to do better. An unusual confluence of political winds helped drive the bargaining. Obama, who was staking part of his legacy on getting a global climate agreement, had spent the year leading up to Paris negotiating a separate deal with China in which both countries committed to cutting their world-leading pollution. France, the host of the Paris talks, was also determined to strike a worldwide pact. In the year that followed, more than 160 countries submitted their initial plans to tackle climate change domestically and began working to finish the rules that would undergird the agreement. “The Paris Agreement isn’t a machine that churns out ambition. It basically reflects back to us the level of ambition that we have agreed to … and suggests what else is needed to get back on track,” said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and a negotiator for the United Kingdom during the Paris talks. “Whether countries do that or not, it’s essentially then a matter for them.” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former environment minister and a lead negotiator of the Paris Agreement’s carbon crediting mechanism, called the deal an “incredible feat” — but not a self-executing one. “The problem is now it’s really up to countries as well as cities, regions, companies and financial institutions to act,” she said. “It’s not a treaty thing anymore — it’s now, ‘Do the work.’” WHEN GREEN TURNS GRAY Signs of discord are not hard to find around the globe. China is tightening its grip on clean energy manufacturing and exports, ensuring more countries have access to low-cost renewables, but creating tensions in places that also want to benefit from jobs and revenue from making those goods and fear depending too much on one country. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former United Nations climate envoy, eliminated his country’s consumer carbon tax and is planning to tap more natural gas to toughen economic defenses against the United States. The European Union spent the past five years developing a vast web of green regulations and sectoral measures, and the bloc estimates that it’s roughly on track to meet those goals. But many of the EU’s 27 governments — under pressure from the rising far right, high energy prices, the decline of traditional industry and Russia’s war against Ukraine — are now demanding that the EU reevaluate many of those policies. Still, views within the bloc diverge sharply, with some pushing for small tweaks and others for rolling back large swaths of legislation. “Europe must remain a continent of consistency,” French President Emmanuel Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in October. “It must step up on competitiveness, but it must not give up on its [climate] goals.” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in contrast, said after the same meeting that he felt vindicated about his country’s long-standing opposition to the EU’s green agenda: “In most European capitals, people today think differently about these exaggerated European climate ambitions.” Worldwide, most countries have not submitted their latest carbon-cutting plans to the United Nations. While the plans that governments have announced mostly expand on their previous ones, they still make only modest reductions against what is needed to limit Earth’s warming since the preindustrial era to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Exceeding that threshold, scientists say, would lead to more lives lost and physical and economic damage that would be ever harder to recover from with each tenth of a degree of additional warming. The U.N.’s latest report showing the gap between countries’ new pledges and the Paris targets found that the world is on track for between 2.3 and 2.5 degrees of warming, a marginal difference from plans submitted in 2020 that is largely canceled out when the U.S. pledge is omitted. Policies in place now are pointing toward 2.8 degrees of warming. “We need unprecedented cuts to greenhouse gas emissions now in an ever-compressing timeframe and amid a challenging geopolitical context,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. But doing so also makes sense, she added. “This where the market is showing that these kind of investments in smart, clean and green is actually driving jobs and opportunities. This is where the future lies.” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message Tuesday that overshooting the 1.5-degrees target of Paris was now inevitable in the coming years imploring leaders to rapidly roll out renewables and stop expanding oil, gas and coal to ensure that overshoot was short-lived. “We’re in a huge mess,” said Bill Hare, a longtime climate scientist who founded the policy institute Climate Analytics. Greenhouse gas pollution hasn’t fallen, and action has flat lined even as climate-related disasters have increased. “I think what’s upcoming is a major test for the Paris Agreement, probably the major test. Can this agreement move forward under the weight of all of these challenges?” Hare asked. “If it can’t do that, governments are going to be asking about the benefits of it, frankly.” That doesn’t mean all is lost. In 2015, the world was headed for around 4 degrees Celsius of warming, an amount that researchers say would have been devastating for much of the planet. Today, that projection is roughly a degree Celsius lower. “I think a lot of us in Paris were very dubious at the time that we would ever limit warming to 1.5,” said Elliot Diringer, a former climate official who led the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions’ international program during the Paris talks. “The question is whether we are better off by virtue of the Paris Agreement,” he said. “I think the answer is yes. Are we where we need to be? Absolutely not.” GREEN TECHNOLOGY DEFYING EXPECTATIONS In addition, the adoption of clean energy technology has moved even faster than projected — sparking what one climate veteran has called a shift in global climate politics. “We are no longer in a world in which only climate politics has a leading role and a substantial role, but increasingly, climate economics,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015. “Yes, politics is important; no longer as important as it was 10 years ago.” Annual solar deployment globally is 15 times greater than the International Energy Agency predicted in 2015, according to a recent analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a U.K. nonprofit. Renewables now account for more than 90 percent of new power capacity added globally every year, BloombergNEF reported. China is deploying record amounts of renewables and lowering costs for countries such as Brazil and Pakistan, which has seen solar installations skyrocket. Even in the United States, where Trump repealed many of Biden’s tax breaks and other incentives, BloombergNEF predicts that power companies will continue to deploy green sources, in large part because they’re often the fastest source of new electricity. Costs for wind and batteries and falling, too. Electric vehicle sales are soaring in many countries, thanks in large part to the huge number of inexpensive vehicles being pumped out by China’s BYD, the world’s largest EV-maker. Worldwide clean energy investments are now twice as much as fossil fuels spending, according to the International Energy Agency. “Today, you can actually talk about deploying clean energy technologies just because of their cost competitiveness and ability to lower energy system costs,” said Robbie Orvis, senior director of modeling and analysis at the research institution Energy Innovation. “You don’t actually even have to say ‘climate’ for a lot of them, and that just wasn’t true 10 years ago.” The economic trends of the past decade have been striking, said Todd Stern, the U.S. climate envoy who negotiated the Paris Agreement. “Paris is something that was seen all over the world, seen by other countries, seen in boardrooms, as the first time in more than 20 years when you finally got heads of government saying, ‘Yes, let’s do this,’” he said. “And that’s not the only reason why there was tremendous technological development, but it sure didn’t hurt.” Still, limits exist to how far businesses can take the clean energy transition on their own. “You need government intervention of some kind, whether that’s a stick or a carrot, to push the economy towards a low-carbon trajectory,” said Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary general of policy at the International Chamber of Commerce. “If governments press the brakes on climate action or seriously start to soft pedal, then it does have a limiting effect.” Brazil, the host of COP30, says it wants to demonstrate that multilateralism still works and is relevant to peoples’ lives and capable of addressing the climate impacts communities around the world are facing. But the goal of this year’s talks might be even more straightforward, said Guilanpour, the former negotiator. “If we come out of COP30 demonstrating that the Paris Agreement is alive and functioning,” he said, “I think in the current context, that is pretty newsworthy of itself.” Nicolas Camut in Paris, Zi-Ann Lum in Ottawa, Karl Mathiesen in London and Zia Weise in Brussels contributed to this report.

LONDON — Since Labour swept into office last year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has traveled the country enthusing over the government’s dream of a humming, futuristic net-zero economy. The good news, according to polling released Wednesday, is that his vision still has the backing of the public. The bad news is that support is slipping — and voters aren’t convinced Miliband is the guy to deliver it. For Miliband’s political opponents, this validates their wider attacks on him as an out-of-touch climate warrior, flogging a net-zero dream voters have rejected. At Reform’s party conference Friday, party chair David Bull referenced “mad Ed swivel-eyed Milliband.” Not to be outdone, the Conservatives have vowed to squeeze every molecule of oil and gas from beneath the North Sea, deadly heatwaves be damned. But it also shines a light on a confusing feature of British politics: a misalignment between the stories politicians want to tell about efforts to stop climate change, and stuff the public actually care about. At Reform’s party conference Friday, the party chair David Bull referenced “mad Ed swivel-eyed Milliband.” | Leon Neal/Getty Images The polling, conducted by progressive think tank More in Common and the Climate Outreach NGO, found the number of people who think reaching net-zero emissions will be good for the U.K. vastly outnumber those who think it will have a negative effect — 48 percent versus 16 percent. More people feel that the shift to clean energy has been fair than unfair. In Scotland, more are proud of the offshore wind industry (63 percent) than the oil and gas industry (54 percent). “Those who seek to divide communities with climate disinformation will not win because they do not represent the interests or values of the British people,” Miliband said in a statement shared with the media. Despite this, voters are hesitant about the personal impact of a country rushing to go green. Seventy-four percent of people think the U.K.’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 will eventually cost them money personally. The gap between those who think it will be beneficial for the U.K. versus harmful has shrunk by 20 points in only a year. This is frequently interpreted as a sign that a personal desire to help fix the climate is butting up against the hard realities of net zero, which requires changes like fitting millions of heat pumps and EV chargers and overhauling the energy grid. Further polling released by The Times Tuesday backs up the sense voters are growing more divided on climate change. It shows support for net zero collapsing among Reform and Conservative voters, while overall the issue has slipped from voters’ list of top concerns. But analysts from Climate Outreach said part of the problem isn’t the message but the messengers. “Politicians are not well trusted to speak about climate,” the NGO said in an analysis shared with POLITICO. In fact, elected leaders were the least trusted carriers of the climate message — beneath also-lowly ranked protesters and energy company executives. TRUST ISSUES Voter wariness about pro-climate messages isn’t a feature of green politics in particular, said Emma James, a researcher at Climate Outreach, but a symptom of broader public cynicism about government. “They don’t trust that politicians are there for people like them. Some audience segments feel that the system is rigged against them,” she said. It’s not net zero the public aren’t buying, it’s the ability of this government — or any government — to deliver it. Voters believe the NHS remains broken. National projects like high-speed rail lines and nuclear power stations keep being delayed at higher and higher costs. This creates a problem for Miliband. At a time of deep voter skepticism, his Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is pursuing precisely that kind of major national project — involving upfront costs, disruption and complex trade-offs, with the promise of huge savings to private and public purses down the line. It will, Miliband argues, generate new jobs. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives went in search of their own set of climate salespeople. | Carl Court/Getty Images “We will win this fight by showing the visible benefits of the clean energy transition,” insisted one Labour official, granted anonymity to discuss the government’s internal deliberations. The story of failure, however, is pervasive and self-reinforcing, said Richard Johnson, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London. “Policy delivery has to be tied in with a compelling political narrative and the political leadership that can tell that story and interpret what people are seeing in front of their eyes,” he said. “I wonder now if there is such a high level of cynicism … that even if you did tell a compelling narrative around policy delivery, that people would not believe it.” Johnson lays the blame with Miliband’s boss, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, “who has been in a way almost catastrophically unable to put together a compelling narrative for his government. Or, quite frankly, even his own leadership.” Downing Street says it is focused on driving economic growth across the country. This is not isolated to Labour. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives went in search of their own set of climate salespeople — before deciding that there was more political capital in ditching pro-climate policies. Climate Outreach said Miliband could turn this problem into an “opportunity,” as long as he laid off the grand projet and focused on the visible, local benefits of climate policies. And there is some evidence that Labour gets it, seen in the government’s move to chip in for the energy bills of people living in sight of unpopular new electricity pylons. The more conservative or skeptical parts of the British electorate still had deep enthusiasm for messages about protecting the environment, the pollsters said. But most important, the NGO argued, was bringing other voices into the frame. While politicians are viewed very dimly indeed, experts and scientists are seen as credible messengers, the polling shows. So too are those seen to understand what life is like for normal British people. Farmers were among the messengers who cut through most with traditionalists and those described by the pollsters as “patriots.” Jeremy Clarkson, DESNZ needs you.

Danish wind power giant Ørsted is suing the the Trump administration for its order to halt work on the nearly completed Revolution Wind project off the coast of New England. Ørsted and its joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday seeking to vacate the stop-work order from Trump’s Interior Department, arguing that the administration lacked the legal authority for the decision. “The Project has spent billions of dollars in reliance on these valid approvals,” the filing said. “The Stop Work Order is invalid and must be set aside because it was issued without statutory authority, in violation of agency regulations and procedures and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and is arbitrary and capricious.” The stop-work order was among several actions taken under President Donald Trump — a longtime wind critic — to impede development of the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry. Since the stop-work order, his administration has withdrawn grants for offshore wind-related infrastructure projects and signaled in legal proceedings that it intends to revoke permits for numerous projects approved under former President Joe Biden. The Interior Department last month ordered the halt to construction of the massive Revolution Wind project off the coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut until the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management could assess the national security risks and concern about its interference with reasonable uses of the surrounding waters. State and federal officials, labor unions and clean energy advocates have pounced on the decision, arguing it will have a chilling effect on investments across the country while also costing the region some 1,000 union jobs. ISO New England, the region’s power grid operator, also warned that delaying the project “will increase risks” to reliability. The filing from the Revolution Wind project on Thursday noted that the Defense Department had previously cleared the project to proceed. Revolution Wind — which is 80 percent complete — received federal and state permits in 2023 and had been expected to begin operations next year. Its 65 turbines would have a production capacity of 704 megawatts, which could provide clean energy to power more than 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The filing said that if unabated, the stop-work order “will inflict devastating and irreparable harm” on Revolution Wind, which has already spent or committed about $5 billion on the project and will incur more than $1 billion in costs if the project is canceled. A person close to the decision to sue the administration said Thursday that the “important” legal step is part of a multitrack approach, but noted that conversations with stakeholders, including at state and federal levels, continue to seek a resolution. The Interior Department said Thursday that it does not have comment on litigation. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Policymakers are overlooking a $370 billion market that will determine whether climate goals succeed or fail.  In the grand narrative of the clean energy transition, materials like lithium, rare earths and silicon dominate headlines. Yet the most strategically important materials for this transition may be hiding in plain sight, dismissed by policymakers as environmental villains rather than recognized as the enablers of human progress they truly are. The $370 billion blind spot Polyolefins — the family of materials that includes polyethylene and polypropylene — represent perhaps the greatest strategic oversight in contemporary clean industry policy Here is a reality check. Polyolefins represent a global market approaching $370 billion, growing at over 5 percent annually.1,2 They make up nearly half of all plastics consumed in Europe.3 By 2034, global production is expected to hit 371 million tons.4  Yet in the European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal — a €100 billion strategy for industrial competitiveness — polyolefins receive barely a mention.4 This represents a profound strategic miscalculation. While policymakers focus on securing access to exotic critical materials like lithium and cobalt, they overlook the fact that polyolefins are already critical materials— they simply happen to be abundant rather than scarce. In the infrastructure-intensive clean energy transition ahead, abundance is not a weakness; it is the ultimate strategic advantage. > While policymakers focus on securing access to exotic critical materials like > lithium and cobalt, they overlook the fact that polyolefins are already > critical materials. The EU’s REPowerEU plan calls for 1,236 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 — more than double today’s levels.4 Every offshore wind farm, solar array and electric grid connection depends on polyolefins. They insulate cables, protect components and form structural parts of turbines and solar panels. Every solar panel relies on polyolefin elastomers to protect its inner workings for up to 30 years, even in harsh weather.8 And every grid connection depends on polyethylene-insulated cables to carry electricity efficiently across long distances. 7 Multiply these requirements across thousands of installations, and the strategic importance of polyolefins becomes undeniable. Yet, currently, the policy framework treats these materials as afterthoughts, focusing instead on the relatively small quantities of rare elements in generators and inverters while ignoring the massive volumes of polyolefins that make the entire system possible. Beyond energy: the hidden dependencies The strategic importance of polyolefins extends far beyond energy infrastructure. As one example, modern medical systems depend fundamentally on polyolefin materials for syringes, IV bags, tubing and protective equipment. Global food security increasingly depends on polyolefin-based packaging systems that extend shelf life, reduce waste and enable distribution networks — feeding billions of people. Meanwhile, water infrastructure relies on polyethylene pipes engineered for 100-year lifespans. These applications are rarely considered alongside energy priorities — a dangerous fragmentation of strategic thinking. The waste challenge and a circular solution Let’s be clear, plastic waste is a real environmental challenge demanding urgent action. However, the solution is not abandoning these essential materials, it is building the infrastructure to capture their full value in circular systems. The fundamental error in current approaches is treating waste as a material problem rather than a systems problem. Europe currently captures only 23 percent of polyolefin waste for recycling, despite these materials representing nearly two-thirds of all post-consumer plastic waste.3 That’s not because the material can’t be recycled. The infrastructure to do so isn’t at the scale needed to collect, sort and recycle waste to meet future circular feedstock needs. Polyolefins are among the most recyclable materials we have. They can be mechanically recycled multiple times. And with chemical recycling, they can even be broken down to their molecular building blocks and rebuilt into virgin-quality material. That’s not just circularity, it’s circularity at scale. This matters because the EU’s target of 24 percent material circularity by 20305 is unlikely to be met without polyolefins. However, current frameworks treat them as obstacles rather than enablers of circularity. The economic transformation The transition represents an economic transformation, creating competitive advantages for regions implementing it effectively. A region processing 100,000 tons of polyolefin waste annually could capture €100-130 million in additional economic value while creating up to 1,000 jobs.6 > A region processing 100,000 tons of polyolefin waste annually could capture > €100-130 million in additional economic value while creating up to 1,000 jobs. At the end of the day, the clean energy transition must be affordable. Polyolefins help make that possible. They’re cheaper, lighter and longer lasting than many alternatives. Manufacturers with access to cost-effective recycled feedstocks can reduce input costs by 20-40 percent compared with virgin materials. Polyethylene pipes cost 60-70 percent less than steel alternatives while lasting twice as long.9 These aren’t marginal gains. They’re system-level efficiencies that make the difference between success and failure at scale. The strategic choice The real challenge isn’t technical, it’s institutional. Polyolefins sit at the crossroads of materials, environmental and industrial policy, yet these areas are treated as separate domains. There’s also a geopolitical angle. Unlike lithium or rare earths, polyolefins can be produced from diverse feedstocks — natural gas, biomass and even captured CO2 — enabling domestic production and supply chain resilience. This flexibility is a major asset, but current policies largely overlook it. > The path forward requires recognizing polyolefins as strategic assets rather > than environmental problems. The path forward requires recognizing polyolefins as strategic assets rather than environmental problems. This means including them in critical materials assessments — not because they are scarce, but because they are essential. It means coordinating research and development efforts rather than leaving them to fragmented market forces. Most importantly, it means recognizing that the clean energy transition will succeed or fail based on our ability to build infrastructure at unprecedented scale and speed. And that infrastructure will be built primarily from materials that combine performance, abundance, sustainability and cost-effectiveness in ways only polyolefins can provide. The choice facing policymakers is clear: continue treating polyolefins as problems to be managed or recognize them as strategic assets enabling the clean energy future. The regions that understand this integration first will shape the global economy for decades to come. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Grand View Research. (2024). Polyolefin Market Size, Share, Growth | Industry Report, 2030. Retrieved from https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/polyolefin-market 2. Fortune Business Insights. (2024). Polyolefin Market Size, Share & Growth | Global Report [2032]. Retrieved from https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/polyolefin-market-102373 3. Plastics Europe. (2025). Polyolefins. Retrieved from https://plasticseurope.org/plastics-explained/a-large-family/polyolefins-2/ 4. European Commission. (2025). Clean Industrial Deal. Retrieved from https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/clean-industrial-deal_en 5. European Commission. (2022). Circular economy action plan. Retrieved from https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/circular-economy-action-plan_en 6. Watkins, E., & Schweitzer, J.P. (2018). Moving towards a circular economy for plastics in the EU by 2030. Institute for European Environmental Policy. Retrieved from https://ieep.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Think-2030-A-circular-economy-for-plastics-by-2030-1. 7. Institute of Sustainable Studies (2025). EU Circular Economy Act aims to double circularity rate by 2030 EU Circular Economy Act – Institute of Sustainability Studies 8. López-Escalante, M.C., et al. (2016). Polyolefin as PID-resistant encapsulant material in PV modules. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 144, 691-699. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927024815005206 9. PE100+ Association. (2014). Polyolefin Sewer Pipes – 100 Year Lifetime Expectancy. Retrieved from https://www.pe100plus.com/PPCA/Polyolefin-Sewer-Pipes-100-Year-Lifetime-Expectancy-p1430.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LONDON — Developers have pulled the plug on one of the U.K.’s biggest offshore wind projects, in a blow to the government’s clean power 2030 ambitions. Danish renewables firm Ørsted said its decision to “discontinue” the 2.4 gigawatt Hornsea 4 wind farm “in its current form” was a result of rising supply chain costs and higher interest rates. The project secured government guarantees under the flagship contracts for difference scheme only eight months ago and had been due to start operating by the end of 2030. The firm said it will will “evaluate options for future development of the Hornsea 4 project given the continuing seabed rights, grid connection agreement and development consent order,” but confirmed it could no longer deliver the project as planned. Increased offshore wind capacity is expected to form the backbone of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ambitious plan to power the U.K. almost entirely with low carbon sources by 2030. The potential loss of 2.4GW of potential capacity is a significant setback. A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said the government would “work with Ørsted to get Hornsea 4 back on track” and insisted that there was still “a strong pipeline of projects to deliver clean power by 2030.” The next round of subsidy allocations under the contracts for difference scheme — known as allocation round seven (AR7) — is due later this year and is seen as a final chance  to secure sufficient offshore wind capacity to hit the government’s 2030 goal. An energy industry figure, granted anonymity to speak about government decision-making, said the loss of Hornsea 4 “raises the stakes quite a bit for AR7.” The 2030 goal was still achievable, they said, “but it’s obviously a significant amount of capacity that now will have to be sought elsewhere if the project can’t get back up and running.”

LONDON — When Octopus Energy boss Greg Jackson appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2023 — one of the U.K.’s longest-running, most-loved BBC radio shows — his first song choice was a 1980s banger: Yazz’s “The Only Way Is Up.” The optimism was on-brand for Jackson, one of the energy industry’s most polished lobbyists with half of Westminster on speed dial. Octopus, the clean energy start-up he founded in 2015, this year became the single largest provider to U.K. households. The multibillion pound firm has its tentacles firmly around the corridors of power, selling politicians on its vision of homes aided by smart meters, solar panels and other green tech. Within days of Labour’s sweeping general election victory in July, Jackson was in the Treasury, a poster boy for new Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ promise to hook clean energy ambitions to economic growth. And he wasn’t just courting Reeves.  Jackson and his colleagues met new Labour energy ministers 10 times in the 12 weeks after the election, according to official records. They were picking up where they left off — transparency data shows the firm had dozens of meetings with Conservative ministers in their final full year in charge of the country. Jackson has always brought “interesting and novel” ideas to Whitehall, one energy policy veteran said admiringly. He is a “likable” guy, said a former senior Westminster official also lobbied by Jackson, and a “key voice” in the green debate, according to Wera Hobhouse, a Lib Dem MP who has seen Jackson up close from her seat on parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. Now the Octopus boss has his lobbying sights set on an obscure technical change to the energy system, which comes with huge potential consequences. He is trying to persuade ministers to overhaul completely how electricity prices are set — precisely the sort of reform which would hand a newer, tech-driven business an advantage over its rivals. And he might just win. MY FRIENDS ED AND RISHI Those Whitehall meetings included four chats with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. (“My friend,” as Miliband cheerfully called Jackson when the two shared a stage at an Octopus-backed event last November.)   Jackson has an unerring habit of getting access to the very top.  Octopus, this year became the single largest provider to U.K. households. | Leon Neal/Getty Images When the Conservative government announced plans in fall 2023 to water down a series of net zero policies, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak found time that morning to call the Octopus boss with a quick heads-up.  These days, Jackson sits on the board advising Labour on its industrial strategy, where he rubs shoulders with former Energy Secretary Greg Clark and Shriti Vadera, once Gordon Brown’s right-hand-woman in the Treasury. The board’s inaugural meeting was hosted by Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. Jackson’s business success helps explain why ministers, desperate both to breathe life into a flagging economy and to honor a promise to clean up the energy grid by 2030, want him around. Financial backers have coughed up hundreds of millions of pounds for stakes in his company. (Jackson still has a four percent share). The massive Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has put in cash. Generation Investment Management, co-founded and chaired by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, struck a $600 million deal in September 2021. Now Octopus has a net asset value of over £7 billion, operating across 32 countries. Its sprawling high-tech central London office is all a bit Silicon Valley — open plan, floor-to-ceiling windows, fridges filled with beers. There are enough screens to grace a NASA mission control room. Informal around the office, the boss favors a quarter-zip fleece and jeans. “I’ve worn a suit, I think, to Buckingham Palace,” Jackson told POLITICO in February, referring to a visit to see King Charles III two years ago. Presumably unused to formal attire, Jackson split his trousers in the car on the way, forcing a last-minute dash to the tailor. Jackson paints these connections — with prime ministers and vice presidents, kings and government ministers — as a natural extension of his work. Not everything is rosy (Octopus lost money each year until 2023 and this year its earnings slid nearly 60 percent), but Jackson is bullish. “We’re the biggest energy retailer so, with seven-and-a-half-million customers, we’ve got very strong views on what’s needed to drive prices down and improve standards,” he said. ON THE INSIDE Those views have found a receptive audience in the corridors of power. Octopus are very effective lobbyists, said Adam Bell, an ex-official who spent eight years immersed in energy policy at the old Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.  “Octopus, unlike other retailers at the time, tended to bring forward regulatory asks that were interesting and novel — things intended to give them freedom to experiment with new consumer offers,” he said. The firm “became quite popular in the department.”  Jackson is “one of the best communicators around on the consumer and technology trends driving the energy transition,” agreed another former Whitehall official, granted anonymity to discuss lobbying. He “has a really useful role to play in communicating this agenda to the public,” said a further Westminster figure. Those Whitehall meetings included four chats with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Carl Court/Getty Images Not everyone is a fan, mind. Some industry figures suggested Jackson enjoyed access to the new government mainly because ministers doubt he will rock the boat. “Labour see him as the ‘no-new-friends strategy,’” said one. “As in: They knew him beforehand, and kind of see him as on the inside. Is he using that to his personal benefit?” Another industry figure shrugged: “He tells people what they want to hear. If you only tell people what they want to hear, then they tend to listen to you.” Like any seasoned lobbyist, Jackson insists he will work with politicians of any stripe. But the Labour links are undeniably there — he was once head of the left-wing pressure group Labour List.  “I mean, briefly, yeah,” he admitted. Companies House data shows he was a director at the group for over six years. Jackson insisted that was just “to keep the lights on until they got a management team.” “I’ve been in the room more with the previous government than this one,” he said. The Westminster hobnobbing is certainly relentless. Octopus met Conservative ministers 41 times in 2023, out-lobbied in the energy sector only by industry giants EDF and BP, according to Global Witness data. Jackson shrugs off the criticism. Rivals “find it easier to grab your shirt to try and drag you back than to improve their own performance,” he said. THE NEXT FIGHT Octopus has plenty of experience fighting (and winning) lobbying and legal battles. It repelled attempts by larger firms in 2022 to tighten rules on financial reserves. A year later it prevailed in a protracted legal battle with British Gas over the takeover of collapsed provider Bulb. Now Jackson’s eyes are firmly set on another big prize: electricity market reform. Now the Octopus boss has his lobbying sights set on an obscure technical change to the energy system, which comes with huge potential consequences. | Pool Photo by Leon Neal via Getty Images It would be the most seismic change to the market since privatization, replacing a single national electricity price with hundreds — possibly thousands — of prices across the U.K., determined by local supply and demand. It comes down to an obscure government consultation process opened nearly three years ago and still unresolved: the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA.) Advocates for locational pricing say it would bring down bills for consumers everywhere. It would certainly boost firms like Octopus which rely on tech and a much more flexible electricity grid. The offer of cheaper bills is not a purely altruistic lobbying move, of course, given the chance it would also help Jackson gobble up even more U.K. market share from his rivals. Many big developers are just as staunchly opposed and are lobbying ministers just as fiercely. They argue it could make electricity pricing unpredictable and deter investment essential to the U.K.’s green goals. Trade bodies like Renewable UK, Solar Energy UK and Steel UK are lined up against it, too. The lobbying spat will continue until a REMA decision arrives, expected in the summer. The government says only that an update will come “in due course.” The second industry figure quoted above was scathing. “He doesn’t build anything,” they said of Octopus’s contribution, adding: “His argument means not building any new infrastructure, but this network needs investment.” Chris O’Shea, boss of British Gas owner Centrica, is critical, too, even if he avoided mentioning Jackson by name. “I think we [should] listen to companies that are actually putting their hands in their pockets. I think we should be dubious about companies that have not put their hands in their pockets,” O’Shea said. “It’s not true to say we don’t build stuff,” parried Jackson, pointing to the renewables assets operated by Octopus’s energy generation arm.  He batted away the broader criticism. “I think companies are typically acting in what they think [is the] public interest,” he said — before suggesting it involved a dose of special pleading from developers, too. “It is notable that the companies that earn money from building wind farms, whether they’re turned on or not, are also the ones that earn money from building grid, right?” Octopus has allies in its fight.  Ofgem, the energy regulator, backs reform. “[W]e do see the attractions … in something that begins to separate the country into different zones and allows prices to settle more organically where they are,” Chief Executive Jonathan Brearley told POLITICO in December.  Tech firms, also a highly influential lobbying voice, reckon local pricing would help them power energy-hungry data centers. Small retail suppliers like Good Energy back the reforms, too. “It’s the needs of 30 million households and businesses that should come first,” Jackson said on X in February, pressing the case for reform. On his Desert Island Discs playlist, Jackson also chose “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. In public, and in the closed-off rooms of Westminster, he has laid his latest bet.

BRUSSELS — Germany’s political system and social cohesion are at stake unless it restricts Chinese wind turbines in the country, a government-backed analysis seen by POLITICO warns. The report, which the German defense ministry commissioned, argues Beijing could purposefully delay projects, harvest sensitive data and remotely shut down turbines if given access to wind farms. It also advises the country to stop an existing wind project using Chinese turbines from going ahead. “When using systems or components from Chinese manufacturers … given the political situation, it can even be assumed that such a slowdown or even disruption would be deliberately used by China as a means of political pressure or even as an instrument of economic warfare,” reads the report, prepared last month by the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies think tank.  “A destabilization of both the political system, the business model of German industry and social cohesion cannot therefore be ruled out due to a lack of or insufficient planning security in the energy sector,” it adds. The analysis comes amid growing concerns related to critical infrastructure risks in Europe. Since 2022, at least six separate incidents of suspected underwater sabotage have taken place in the Baltic Sea.  Meanwhile, Brussels has begun cracking down on Chinese wind suppliers after suspecting them of receiving state subsidies to beat out European competitors for European Union projects. Last year, the European Commission, the EU’s executive, opened a probe into Beijing-linked wind projects in Bulgaria, France, Greece, Romania and Spain. Now those risks are likely to increase if ties worsen with Beijing, according to Andrea Scassola, vice president of wind research at the Rystad consultancy.  “What we are seeing … is intensifying great power rivalry, and at a time when our world is more interconnected than it has ever been — it’s a magnifier of vulnerability and risks,” he said. Overdependence on China also raises the risk of cyberattacks that could “lead to a shutdown of production,” Scassola said, adding that similar public warnings or legal moves to restrict Beijing’s access have already taken place in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland and Lithuania. The report makes similar warnings. If relations sour with China, Beijing could delay the operation of new farms by “at least four to five years” between the planning approval and commissioning stages, the analysis reads, and could coordinate other disruptive efforts with Russia.  Part of the danger also comes from the access that manufacturers get to turbines, according to the study. Beijing’s suppliers would have access to computer programs that control active turbines and collect data from hundreds of radars built into farms, it states — a significant issue given that wind produced a third of Germany’s electricity last year and a fifth of the EU’s power. In sum, the report argues, that would hand China “considerable blackmail potential in the future.” Germany’s defense ministry and the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies declined to comment on the report.  PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUE Despite the warnings, Germany has already begun eyeing Chinese firms as potential suppliers.  Last year, project developer Luxcara announced it had selected Beijing’s Ming Yang Smart Energy to supply 16 turbines for its “Waterkant” offshore wind farm in northwest Germany.  The report warns that the “first time use of Chinese wind turbines must be prevented” on “public safety” grounds, since it risks creating a reliance on Beijing’s expertise and giving it access to “essential elements of German critical infrastructure” near militarily relevant training areas. That’s not the first time the Chinese manufacturing giant’s overtures to Europe have come under scrutiny. Ming Yang supplied 10 turbines for an offshore wind farm in southern Italy that was completed in 2022; Britain’s investment minister also met with the company in December to discuss its business prospects in the U.K., POLITICO revealed last week. Germany’s wind industry is wary of the Waterkant project, too. Local turbine makers see projects with Beijing’s products as a “massive risk,” said Karina Würtz, managing director of the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation, while acknowledging that projects like Waterkant face “threats to [their] commercial viability” if Chinese suppliers withdraw. Berlin must now “investigate into that risk, honestly and in-depth,” she said, and push ahead with enforcing EU laws like the 2023 NIS2 directive, which includes measures to mitigate cybersecurity threats, as soon as a new government is formed after the Feb. 23 election. The report, meanwhile, suggests that Berlin explore legal tools like its national procurement law and Wind Energy at Sea Act to exclude Chinese firms from contracts on defense or public safety grounds.  Ming Yang did not respond to questions sent by POLITICO. Luxcara declined to comment.

LONDON — Britain’s investment minister met with China’s biggest offshore wind company last year, amid security fears about the role of Chinese firms in U.K. and European energy projects. Ministerial transparency documents published this week reveal that Poppy Gustafsson met with Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Limited on Dec. 4 for a dinner. Officials confirmed to POLITICO that the minister discussed the company’s business aspirations in the U.K. The meeting was held in China during a visit last year, the month before Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited the country to drum up investment. Earlier this month, The Sun newspaper revealed that Ming Yang was selected by a joint Italian-Norwegian-Japanese venture to provide turbines for its Green Volt North Sea wind farm, set to be Europe’s largest floating green energy project. Norway rejected the firm’s bid for a tender last year over national security concerns, the paper said. Ming Yang are also in talks to open a turbine plant in Scotland if the Green Volt deal is given the go-ahead, having been given “priority status” to set up the manufacturing base, according to The Daily Mail. A trade department spokesperson said: “The investment minister has met with a number of companies, including MingYang Smart Energy Group, as part of her role to drive forward the government’s plan for change, including making the U.K. into a clean energy superpower and delivering economic growth.” SECURITY CONCERNS Opposition MPs in the U.K. parliament raised concerns with ministers last week about the  reports Ming Yang could be handed a role in building U.K. net zero infrastructure. Questioning Energy Minister Kerry McCarthy, Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie said: “The indication that Ming Yang will get the greenlight from the Treasury to supply wind turbine technology to the Greenvolt wind farm in the North Sea is concerning.”  Bowie added that “alarm bells have been sounded by officials in [the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero] and indeed in the Ministry of Defence.” DESNZ refused to tell POLITICO whether its officials had raised concerns with the Treasury. The Department for Business and Trade declined to comment on whether Gustafsson had raised any security concerns with Ming Yang during last year’s meeting. Bowie said he, along with other MPs, had been briefed in recent weeks by the Royal Navy “on the vulnerability of our subsea communications and energy infrastructure. … If Chinese-manufactured turbines are installed, security experts have warned that sensors could spy on British seas, defense submarine programs, and indeed the layout of our energy infrastructure.” Lib Dem MP Pippa Heylings told the Commons: “A former MI6 chief has warned of vulnerabilities, either deliberate or inadvertent, posed by foreign software embedded in our energy infrastructure.” BRITAIN’S INTELLIGENCE SERVICES MI5 is currently helping the government establish the extent to which Chinese technology could pose potential security threats, according to The Financial Times, as part of the new Labour government’s audit of policies towards China. The government’s evolving position on China, which aims to balance the need for economic growth with its security concerns, will include its upcoming Foreign Influence Registration Scheme — a U.S.-style register of the work of foreign states in Britain. The scheme includes Russia, China and Iran, countries which MI5 views as the main state threats to the U.K. The Home Office last month issued guidance to the U.K.’s private intelligence and security industry which included examples of how state threats could destabilize critical infrastructure. “Tactics can include collecting information about design, configuration and operation for technical access, or to gain control of supply chains through investment or monopolisation,” the department noted. In 2019 GCHQ — an arm of MI6 — told parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee that Chinese cyber actors had previously targeted Britain’s energy sector, which saw one FTSE 100 energy company compromised, seeing commercially sensitive information stolen. Ming Yang did not respond to a request for comment from POLITICO. The firm also met with Tory ministers during their time in government. Conservative ministers did not declare receiving any hospitality from the company. Andrew Bowie on Thursday sought to lay the blame squarely on Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.  Bowie told POLITICO: “We have been warning that Labour’s eco-zealotry will offshore this country’s energy security to China, and now the evidence is clear. “By throwing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash into a breakneck rush to net zero, all to appease Ed Miliband’s ideology and vanity, Labour will hand control of our supply chains to foreign powers, leaving critical infrastructure at the mercy of China and Russia.” A spokesperson for Miliband did not respond to a request for comment in time for deadline.

FLAMANVILLE, France — EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné traveled to a nuclear plant in Normandy this week with a message for Brussels: It’s time to heed nuclear advocates. “There’s a part of Europe that I believe is the majority today, which considers that nuclear power should be part of our decarbonization strategy,” Séjourné told POLITICO aboard a regional train returning to Paris Thursday evening. “The economic and social context has changed,” he added. “So did the political context.” Séjourné’s atomic push is part of a broader French-led offensive to turn the tide on nuclear power in Brussels.  The EU has traditionally omitted atomic energy from the incentives it extends to renewable energy sources like wind and solar. But nuclear advocates like France want to change that, arguing that as a low-carbon option nuclear deserves greater support from Brussels to help speed the green transition.  Now France has Séjourné in Brussels, a vocal commissioner pushing to have that stance incorporated in the Clean Industrial Deal, the EU’s upcoming plan to help industries cut carbon emissions and keep manufacturers in business, due out Feb. 26.  He’s got plenty of people cheering him on. The war in Ukraine, the ensuing energy crisis and Europe’s nuclear-friendly rightward shift have all boosted the standing of atomic energy across the continent. There’s also the fact that Germany, France’s nemesis on all things nuclear, is distracted by internal politics and a flagging economy, creating a political opening nuclear advocates don’t want to miss. Accordingly, nuclear proselytizers are pouncing. Last week the French Medef organization, which includes business lobbies from 13 EU countries plus the U.K., signed a declaration asking for increased EU support for the nuclear sector. The new group aims to be a private-sector equivalent to the Nuclear Alliance, within which a dozen EU member countries, led by Paris, regularly meet during gatherings of energy ministers in Brussels.  There is an “economic logic” to reviving nuclear power in Europe, Séjourné said, calling it a competitive asset.  Nuclear power “is low carbon, [is] aligned with European sovereignty, and is lowering prices because the amount of [electricity] production is just huge,” he argued.  There’s just one problem with those claims: The last nuclear reactors built or under construction in Europe have all experienced major delays and cost overruns, raising questions about the industry’s ability to deliver new reactors on time and on budget. French nuclear giant EDF’s latest reactor, built at the Flamanville power plant that Séjourné visited this week, has come to symbolize the industry’s difficulties. Construction took 17 years instead of five and cost seven times more than planned, according to a recent report from the French audit body.  Although industry representatives say they can go faster if given clear targets, those struggles have spurred French authorities to err on the side of caution. One of the conditions set by the French government for approval of public financing for six new nuclear reactors is that these must produce electricity at “competitive” prices compared to renewable energy sources like offshore wind, Joël Barre, the senior official tasked with overseeing France’s nuclear relaunch, recently told POLITICO. Even though the political winds seem to be blowing in Séjourné’s favor, however, his unvarnished nuclear proselytizing could come with political risks. Asked whether he was worried his move would alienate some of his fellow EU commissioners, the former French foreign minister, who is a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron, said he had been sent to Brussels “to make a difference.” “You have to respect those who disagree, that’s why there are discussions,” Séjourné added, an EU flag pinned to his lapel. “But that shouldn’t prevent the French commissioner from making strong statements on this topic.”