Europe needs to keep carbon neutraility goals, despite countries returning to coal, says Sinkevičius

Europe faces a mountain of challenges in the coming years concerning climate change. The task at hand becomes more and more arduous when we consider the war in Ukraine having a knock-on effect on energy prices, inflation and the cost of living, with many Europeans feeling the strain. 

This has become a major headache for the European Commissioner for the Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius, who is navigating Europe's climate course in the hope of reaching its climate neutrality targets by 2050. 

But can he convince European member states to keep to its objectives? And persuade citizens to keep the faith? Sinkevičius spoke with Euronews's Grégoire Lory on The Global Conversation, to tell us about the task at hand.

Grégoire Lory: You've presented some proposals to restore nature. What are the targets of this Nature Restoration law?

Virginijus Sinkevičius: So today we really made a huge step, from not only protecting nature but also nature restoration. And the main target is going to have 20% of nature restoration action around the EU by 2030. Then we have different ecosystem targets, which include peatlands, grasslands, pollinators and so on, even urban areas, which I think is now very, very important to the hearts of Europeans, especially realising during the lockdowns how we really miss green coverage in urban areas. So our goal is to increase by 2030, 5% of urban areas' green coverage.

GL: According to your assessment, what would be the cost of inaction and what are the benefits of restoring biodiversity?

VS: So we did a really thorough impact assessment. It's almost 700 pages. And the most important thing probably if we speak about action and inaction is actually benefits. We should stop living in the myth that acting for