BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.

NEWPORT, Wales — Road signs around Newport still refer to this sprawling former industrial site as a radiator factory. But soon, it will generate a different kind of heat. Microsoft has chosen this area of South Wales — once the world’s steel capital — to build hulking new data centers. Five buildings, covering an area larger than three football pitches, are springing up to meet what the company describes as “exploding demand” for artificial intelligence compute power.  For Microsoft, the area’s industrial heritage is precisely why it’s investing. Newport’s legacy of heavy-duty factories means it has the infrastructure needed for energy-intensive data centers. But doubts over whether Britain can supply enough energy to keep up with demand from data centers are an urgent problem for the government’s AI ambitions. The government’s former AI adviser Matt Clifford has warned that without energy and planning reform, new data center projects and the billions of pounds of investment they bring are at risk.  Britain’s industrial electricity prices are 60 percent higher than the average of countries in the International Energy Agency, and waits for a grid connection can stretch to a decade.  “We had the biggest AI funders in the world lining up to invest tens of billions into our infrastructure if only we could sort out our energy mess,” Clifford said at an event about his time in No.10. U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Warren Stephens, Donald Trump’s point man in London, is also watching closely, calling Britain’s energy costs the country’s “chief obstacle” to growth. “If there are not major reforms to U.K. energy policy, then the U.K.’s position as a premier destination in the global economy is vulnerable,” Stephens warned a business gathering in London. A TALL ORDER The Newport project will need 80MW of energy – enough to power a small town – but the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) predicts the country needs to boost its total data center capacity five-fold by 2035, from 1.8GW to 9.6GW. That expansion will mean data centers’ power total demand will treble over the same period, according to NESO, the body which manages U.K. electricity demand. A spokesperson for the DSIT said it was looking at “bespoke options” to support data centers’ energy demands, adding: “The work of our AI Energy Council — bringing together regulators, energy companies and tech firms — will ensure we can do that using responsible, sustainable sources.” AI Minister Kanishka Narayan told a conference for AI researchers in London in October that there was “no better place to build” than Britain, arguing its combination of talent, access to capital and large public markets is unmatched. Investors aren’t so sure.  “People aren’t willing to pay a premium on U.K. power rates to run their workloads here,” Mike Mattacola, international general manager at AI infrastructure company CoreWeave said at the same conference. “We need to fix that.” SELLING THE SHOVELS It’s not just energy prices that are the problem. The boss of Hitachi Energy U.K., which is working with the National Grid to upgrade Britain’s power network, warned that the grid is the biggest hurdle to Britain’s AI ambitions. Laura Fleming said data centers should be at “the heart” of the country’s energy planning, but added: “I’m still not sure whether as the U.K. we have sufficiently planned for this.”  More than half all applications for a grid connection are now made by data centers, according to the National Grid. Energy regulator Ofgem is trying to get a grip of things, grumbling that amid the “credible data center projects” applying for a grid connection, they want to get rid of “less viable projects that may crowd out those with genuine merit.” Power providers, meantime, are lining up to find the opportunities in this uncertainty. Two hundred miles to the north of Newport, the U.K.’s largest power station is offering itself as one solution. Drax Power Station burns wood pellets imported from North America and wants to build data centers hooked up to its four biomass terminals.  Richard Gwilliam, director of future operations, revealed that Drax has already held talks with hyperscalers and plans to bring a data center online in the early 2030s. He hoped the 2.6-gigawatt power station could offer “big scale stuff” to the market. Gwilliam also said the existing connections gave biomass a trump card to play in the data center race. SQUARING THE CIRCLE The rush for power is also clashing with Britain’s net zero ambitions. The most in-demand energy source for data centers is still fossil fuels, specifically gas. National Gas said it has had inquiries from five big data center projects since last November, equivalent to 2.5GW worth of energy capacity, or twice the capacity of Britain’s biggest nuclear power station, Sizewell B.  Its chief commercial officer, Ian Radley, argued gas provided customers with “the flexibility and capacity they need to enable the Government’s strategic AI ambitions.”  But environmental groups point out that the surge in carbon emissions from new data centers have not been factored in to the  U.K.’s Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, which sets out a path for the government to hit legally-binding climate goals up to 2037.  “It’s unclear how the government intends to square the circle of encouraging a construction frenzy of new, highly polluting data centers while not overshooting the binding climate targets they need to meet,” said Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at campaign group Foxglove. This tension is also being played out at the AI Energy Council, a body the government formed in January to bring AI and energy companies together, but which has only met twice.  It is co-chaired by two ministers with different priorities. Ed Miliband, as energy secretary, needs to cut Britain’s emissions to zero by 2050, while Technology Secretary Liz Kendall needs to turn AI’s promises of investment and growth, particularly to left-behind areas, into a reality.  The government has pushed the idea AI Growth Zones — huge data center campuses on former industrial land, which already have grid connections and will get fast-tracked through planning — as a solution. One has already been announced in Northumberland, but a decision on a second, planned for Teesside in north-east England, has been delayed until the end of this year by Miliband, whose department has to make a call on whether to greenlight plans for a hydrogen plant on the same site, which could preclude data centers being built there. “There is a large fight going on inside of government where Ed Miliband seems to have set himself up against not just the prime minister, but a number of secretaries of state,” Houchen told POLITICO during Conservative Party Conference in October.  THE NUCLEAR OPTION Long term, the government is betting on a cleaner, but more expensive energy source — nuclear, specifically small modular reactors. Michael Jenner, CEO of nuclear firm Last Energy UK, said they had received dozens of enquiries from data center builders and argued that the green credentials of nuclear was an ace card it could play against rival bids from gas companies.   “If you’re thinking about building data centers in South Wales, which a lot of people are, you have a problem with the authorities because they don’t want new gas there,” he said.  In September, EDF Energy announced plans to work with American company Holtec International building a crop of data centers next to small modular nuclear reactors at a disused coal plant in Nottinghamshire.  The Tony Blair Institute, which is influential with government ministers, has argued nuclear has a “unique” advantage when it comes to data centers. It also believes the country should scale back its net zero plans in favor of reducing energy costs to attract data center investment.  “Cheap, firm power is … not a ‘nice to have’ but a prerequisite for attracting AI-driven growth,” it argued in a report last month. Gas, meanwhile, should be part of that energy mix, the Institute recommended in July. Firms represented at the AI Energy Council have urged ministers to green-light greater use of gas turbines in the short term. The clock is ticking. Gas, nuclear, renewables or even wooden pellets — ministers willing on an AI revolution need to make decisions fast.  

YORKSHIRE, England ― The vast Drax power station in north Yorkshire helps keep Britain’s lights on.  The Labour government is just the latest administration to pour subsidies worth billions of pounds into the plant, which burns tons of imported wood pellets every year to generate a big slice of the power the country needs ― a crucial role after global energy markets were upended by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Drax’s bosses also claim that, because their biomass operations are deemed climate-friendly, ministers will miss their net zero goals without it.   Yet its critics are growing in number and volume.  Climate campaigners shout greenwashing. Senior politicians who once backed Drax now trash its impact on the environment. The idea of relying on biomass long-term is “dangerous,” says one Labour backbencher.  All the while, Drax is locked in talks with the government over even more financial support, this time for upgrades which would secure its future and ensure its compatibility with stringent climate goals. At the same time, the U.K.’s leading financial watchdog is digging deep into its operations — an investigation which could lead to a hefty fine and another dent to the plant’s reputation.   POLITICO went inside.  INSIDE THE FACTORY  The Drax Power Station covers a sprawling 1,250 acre site near the Yorkshire village of Selby. Once a bastion of coal power, it is now the U.K.’s leading source of biomass, shipping in wood pellets from trees harvested in North America.   The plant consists of 12 cooling towers with chimneys taller than the London Eye. Its four biome domes are 65 meters high, each vast enough to house the Royal Albert Hall. These power its four biomass terminals, which meet 8 percent of all the U.K.’s energy demands. The pellets are moved around the site on a 25-carriage train, decorated with the Drax logo.   POLITICO navigated the narrow walkways above the factory’s giant terminals, wearing ear protectors to block out sounds of the factory floor, and squeezed into clanking elevators. Hi-viz workers dragged wheelbarrows of material around the site.  Successive Conservative and Labour governments have decided Drax is essential to the U.K. energy supply. Crucially, watchdogs and ministers also treat biomass as a renewable power source (because emissions are offset through planting new trees) — giving Drax a central role as the government strives to hit stringent targets on reducing emissions (known as carbon budgets.)  “It does help keep the lights on as a really big chunk of capacity. It is the single biggest potential point source of negative emissions in a country, making it very appealing when connected to carbon capture and storage,” said Adam Bell, former head of energy at the old Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, now director of policy at the Stonehaven consultancy.   “By itself it could make achieving carbon budgets considerably easier, which is why [the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero] like keeping it in play.” Money has flowed in.  Conservative ministers handed Drax an estimated £6 billion in subsidies between 2012 and 2024. Their Labour successors earlier this year unveiled £2 billion in fresh support.  Drax critics are growing in number and volume. | Lab Ky M/Getty Images The latest tranche of cash is designed to back Drax’s operations between 2027 and 2031, as it negotiates with government over upgrading the plant with carbon capture technology (CCS) which would catch and safely dispose of the carbon it emits.  “The situation that we inherited from the last government meant that we had to consider matters such as security of supply and how we could secure the best deal for bill payers. That is what we did,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told MPs in March.  “I’ve taken many a minister around the power station,” said Richard Gwilliam, Drax’s director of future operations. Miliband, for now at least, has not taken up the offer.   FROM RIGHT AND LEFT   But as ministers continue to strike deals with Drax, its critics are circling.  At the point of generation, green campaigners argue, Drax’s burning of wood pellets is more emissions-intensive than coal. The climate think tank Ember reckons the Yorkshire plant was the U.K.’s single largest source of CO2 emissions in 2024 — producing 13.3 million tons.  “Relying on millions of tons of imported wood to keep the lights on is dangerous,” Labour MP Alex Sobel wrote in The Guardian this summer, backing tighter government terms on the subsidies and slamming biomass as an alternative to clean energy like solar and wind farms. Former environment minister and fellow Labour MP Barry Gardiner is campaigning for the energy regulator to reopen investigations into Drax’s financial reporting.  Polly Billington, a Labour MP and member of parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, says she backs government efforts to introduce a “much stricter regime by tightening sustainability requirements, reducing the overall subsidy and closing profit loopholes.”  On the right, Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who approved Drax’s expansion plans  when she was in office in 2024, is now among its fiercest critics. “Going green by burning trees is absurd,” she said last month.   Reform UK’s Energy Spokesperson Richard Tice says his party would end the subsidies, calling the environmental damage “scandalous.”  But Drax insists that biomass, combined with carbon capture upgrades, is the only way for the U.K. to hit its green goals.   “If this country wants to meet its climate targets, I can’t see a way to do it without large scale carbon removal. That’s not [just] me, that’s the committee on climate change,” Gwilliam said. Last year Will Gardiner, Drax’s chief executive, warned the government’s 2030 decarbonization goal is in jeopardy if the company does not get its CCS in place.  The Climate Change Committee, in its seventh carbon budget, said: “While its role is limited to sectors where there are few, or no, alternatives, we cannot see a route to net zero that does not include CCS.”   Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who approved Drax’s expansion plans  when she was in office in 2024, is now among its fiercest critics. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images “I think we can find common ground on the economic value these projects can bring,” Gwilliam said. He has talked with other companies in the Humber about the value of local industrial jobs, he said. “These are highly skilled, good quality industrial jobs, which are being repurposed towards a sort of greater role than carbon intensity.” MEET THE REGULATORS  Away from the political pressure, the City regulator is also gunning for Drax. In August, it opened an investigation into statements the company has made about its biomass sourcing and the compliance of recent annual reports with listing and transparency rules.  In a separate probe, energy regulator Ofgem slapped the company with a £25 million fine last year, after finding the firm breached reporting requirements for its green subsidies.  Gwilliam twice declined to comment on the FCA’s ongoing investigation, instead referring POLITICO to Drax’s initial statement confirming its cooperation with the watchdog.   The FCA can impose regulatory sanctions including public censure and financial penalties. This year it has fined Barclays around £40 million and Monzo Bank £21 million for breaches.  Meanwhile, Drax executives are locked in talks with the government over long-term financial guarantees, mirroring those already available to wind and solar developers, to back the CCS upgrade plans, known as BECCS. Shareholders have been briefed to expect a decision by the end of the year. A green light would lock the U.K. in to supporting its power station for generations — to the horror of some Whitehall insiders.  “Giving it a BECCS upgrade would be a scandalous waste of money and will feed the net zero backlash more oxygen,” warned one former DESNZ official. “The company and supply chain is always going to be investigated for something or other because the business model and green credentials are fundamentally nonsense.”  But Drax remains bullish. “I hope we don’t see an erosion of the U.K.’s lead as a climate champion, and I think projects like this [BECCS] can be the poster child for the positive impact net zero can have on local economies,” Gwilliam said. A government spokesperson said that “sustainable biomass contributes to our decarbonization efforts.” They added: “Drax will operate for less time under a clean power system and will need to use 100 percent sustainably sourced biomass, with not a penny of subsidy paid for anything less. There will be substantial penalties for any failure to meet these strict criteria, protecting both consumers and the environment.”

LONDON — Britain should scrap its flagship target of cleaning up the power system by 2030 and focus instead on cutting energy costs, according to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s think tank.  In a new report published Thursday, The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) argued the government risked “getting the balance wrong” and blamed “decades of policy decisions” for Britain’s high electricity costs. It called on the government to shift away from its totemic clean power target, and prioritize making electricity cheap to preserve support for the net zero agenda. “If the transition continues in a way that raises costs, weakens reliability and undermines growth, it will fail both politically and practically,” the report said.  It is the second time the former prime minister, through the TBI, has weighed in on the government’s energy strategy. Earlier this year, Blair argued that global attempts to cut fossil fuel consumption are “doomed to fail” without a reset.  The intervention comes as Energy Secretary Ed Miliband faces increasing pressure to cut energy costs for struggling households, especially after the Labour Party pledged to cut them by up to £300 during last summer’s general election. Just last week, bosses of Britain’s largest energy suppliers warned MPs that the costs levied on bills — used to pay for grid upgrades and other green schemes — could continue to push up electricity bills, even if wholesale costs start to dip. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “This report rightly recognises that clean power is the right choice for this country. This Government’s clean power mission is exactly how we will deliver cheaper power and bring down bills for good. “Our mission is relentlessly focused on delivering lower bills for the British people, to tackle the affordability crisis that has been driven by our dependence on fossil fuel markets.” ‘RECIPE FOR PUBLIC OUTRAGE’ Opposition parties have seized on high electricity costs to hammer the government over its decarbonization plans. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho last week accused the government of creating a “recipe for public outrage” over its pledge to cut bills through the clean power plan. The TBI defended the 2050 net zero target and the shift to clean electricity, but does not pinpoint a specific date to achieve the goal. “Circumstances have changed” since Labour set the 2030 target, it argued, while “pushing the system too quickly risks driving up costs and undermining confidence.”  Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho last week accused the government of creating a “recipe for public outrage” over its pledge to cut bills through the clean power plan. | Rasid Necati Aslim/Getty Images The TBI also proposed a string of reforms to government plans, including cutting some carbon taxes on gas and bringing back a controversial proposal to overhaul the electricity market by slicing the U.K.’s single national wholesale price into different “locational” prices. The report’s authors reckon scrapping the carbon price support levy on gas would save the average household around £20 per year.  The report also called for the government to give Britain’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) a mandate to “monitor net zero delivery for cost-effectiveness,” phase out subsidies for the controversial Drax biomass power plant, and implement “radical reform” to the planning regime.  The 2030 target was “right for its time,” said the TBI’s Energy Policy Advisor Tone Langengen, who authored the report. “But circumstances have changed — the U.K. now needs more than a decarbonization plan, it needs a full-spectrum energy strategy built on growth, resilience and abundant clean electricity.”

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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BRUSSELS — The European Union is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, surpassing 1 million hectares burned on Thursday. Fires have burned 1,016,000 hectares — an area larger than Cyprus or around a third of the size of Belgium — since January, data from the bloc’s European Forest Fire Information System analyzed by POLITICO shows. This is the first time the EU hits the 1 million hectare milestone since EFFIS started keeping records in 2006. The previous worst wildfire season, in 2017, clocked just below 988,000 hectares. Nearly two-thirds of losses occurred since Aug. 5, when EFFIS showed only 380,000 hectares burned. The vast majority of the fires have occurred in the Iberian Peninsula. Spain accounts for more than 400,000 hectares burned, while in much-smaller Portugal, flames have consumed more than 270,000 hectares — or 3 percent of the country’s entire territory. In Spain, where records stretch back to the 1960s, this year is the worst fire season since 1994, according to government data. Both countries have endured searing heat in recent weeks, desiccating forests and turning the peninsula into a tinderbox. Climate change is exacerbating wildfire risk, bringing more frequent and intense heat waves and droughts. But scientists say that the main driver of the catastrophic fires in Spain and Portugal is an overabundance of flammable vegetation on abandoned land and authorities’ failure to take preventive measures. Spain’s special prosecutor for environmental issues this week opened an investigation into the lack of fire prevention plans. Wildfires also release large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, with the EU on track for a potential new record for fire-related pollution as well, EFFIS data shows.

BRUSSELS — Exhausted firefighters. Traumatized evacuees. Charred villages. Red horizons, all flames and smoke.  The dramatic images from wildfires tearing through Spain and Portugal year after year have become a mainstay of Europe’s increasingly blistering summers, a symbol of the devastation wreaked by climate change.  But while global warming fuels the flames, the Iberian Peninsula isn’t destined to turn into a fiery hellscape every year. Experts say that most of the damage is, in fact, preventable — if only authorities at regional, national and European levels would act.  “Climate change plays a role here, that’s for sure, but it’s not the main cause, and this cannot be used as an excuse for what governments must do in terms of prevention,” said Jordi Vendrell , director of the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit focused on wildfire management.  This year’s fire season is already the worst on record. Across the European Union, blazes have consumed more than 1 million hectares so far this year — an area larger than Cyprus. Most of that land has burned over the past two weeks in the Iberian Peninsula, where at least six people have died. The scale of this year’s disaster has kicked off an unusual reckoning in both countries as to why Spanish and Portuguese citizens are exposed to such a deadly threat each year.  “My house, my neighbor’s house, my entire town of Castrocalbón has gone up in flames because our authorities are incompetent,” 74-year-old Josefina Vidal cried out at a protest in the central Spanish city of León on Monday. Across the border in Portugal on Tuesday, mourners at a firefighter’s funeral declared Prime Minister Luís Montenegro persona non grata.  Politicians on both sides of the border are keen to avoid being held responsible, and are taking pains to blame the fires on uncontrollable factors like climate change and arson, or past decisions taken by their political rivals. At best, the debate centers on firefighting resources.  Yet experts say that preventing destructive blazes is both simpler and cheaper than fighting them. And the conditions that create firestorms are largely due to how countries manage — or rather, don’t manage — their land. THE CLIMATE FACTOR That’s not to say climate change isn’t playing a role.  The global increase in temperatures, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, does not spark fires. But it creates conditions for flames to spread with ease: More intense and frequent heat waves — such as the searing heat Spain and Portugal endured in recent weeks — dry out soils and plants, rendering forests and land more flammable.  Scientists stress that while halting global warming is crucial to avoid even worse heat waves and droughts, governments must also urgently minimize the risk of climate-fueled disasters. The scale of this year’s disaster has kicked off an unusual reckoning in both countries as to why Spanish and Portuguese citizens are exposed to such a deadly threat each year. | Brais Lorenzo/EPA In the case of fires, that mostly means ensuring there’s less stuff for flames to feast on.  While climate change is ratcheting up fire risk, “the fires we’re seeing are the result of decades of rural exodus and the absence of forest management,” said Arantza Pérez Oleaga, vice dean of Spain’s Official College of Forestry Engineers.  LEAVING THE LAND As more and more farmers and shepherds migrated to cities in recent decades, uncontrolled vegetation took over the forests, meadows, orchards and cropland they once managed. An estimated 2.3 million hectares of Spanish land are now abandoned.  This provides abundant fuel for catastrophic wildfires. The amount of biomass in Spain has surged by 160 percent over the past 50 years, said Eduardo Rojas Briales, forest expert at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.  Halting land abandonment is the key to preventing fires, experts say. Yet currently, with the rural population aging and struggling to make a living, it’s a trend that’s expected to continue.  “We need a strong primary sector,” said Víctor Resco de Dios, forest engineering professor at the University of Lleida. Crops such as olive orchards “traditionally served as firebreaks,” he added. “Now we have the problem that with rural abandonment, crops are less common.”  The wild shrublands and young forests that sprang up in their place may look like land returning to its natural state. But Resco de Dios says that the romantic “Disney ecology” vision many Europeans have of untouched nature is not only a fantasy — it’s actively dangerous.  “We need to make people understand that cutting trees is not an ecological crime,” he said. “On the contrary … if we plant trees and then we forget about them, then we’re just planting the fires that we’ll have in 20 or 30 years from now.”  Forestry experts, scientists and even conservationists agree: Letting Europe’s nature grow wild, without active management, is fueling the devastating fires.  Prevention, they say, means creating diverse landscapes, felling trees to create fire breaks, and developing a rural policy that ensures farmers and shepherds can make a living.  Crucially, it also means letting some fires burn, as long as they don’t spin out of control — ending what experts call a counterproductive policy of extinguishing all flames. In the Mediterranean, “our landscapes, they burn in the past, they are burning in the present, and they must burn in the future,” Vendrell said .  PREVENTION PARADOX Yet political debates about fire management tend to focus on fighting the flames when the land is already burning. In Spain, for example, conservative-led regions and the left-wing central government spent the past week trading blame over firefighting resources.  Experts say that preventing destructive blazes is both simpler and cheaper than fighting them. | Pereira Da Silva/EPA But governments more readily invest in firefighting equipment than prevention. Spain’s firefighting budget is double that of its prevention spending, even though preventing fires is much cheaper than fighting them.  “If we want firefighters to be able to stop a fire, of course, they have to have the means,” said Resco de Dios. “But … they cannot do their job, even if they have all the resources in the world, because the landscapes that we have do not allow them to work.”  Still, the task governments are facing isn’t easy, or cheap. Halting land abandonment will take significant long-term investment in rural communities, said Pérez Oleaga.  Stimulating demand for material such as wood is essential, she added. “There is a reason why there are fewer fires in places like Soria or the Basque Country,” where “the forests are pruned and managed because you still have sawmills and other businesses that make a living from the forests.” The Spanish environment ministry, which also oversees policies related to demographic change, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Portugal’s environment ministry blamed the fires on extreme weather, but said that the country was planning to invest €246 million a year until 2050 in measures to boost forestry industries and land management.  There are signs that fire prevention is getting more attention amid growing frustration over how authorities handle the fires. On Thursday, Spain’s special prosecutor for environmental issues opened an investigation into the lack of forest management plans in connection with the fires.  But all experts interviewed acknowledged that politicians have few incentives to take preventive action, given that the results are often not visible for years or decades after the next election.  “For a politician, the calculation is simple,” said Pérez Oleaga. “You can take a picture next to the firefighting plane you bought with EU funds, but you don’t get to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony when you use public cash to clean up a forest.”

CAN DENMARK SELL GREEN AGRICULTURE TO A SKEPTICAL EU? As Copenhagen takes the helm of the Council, its bold climate credentials face the hard grind of EU politics — and a bloc more interested in competitiveness than carbon cuts. By LUCIA MACKENZIE and BARTOSZ BRZEZŃSKI Photo-Illustration Matthieu Bourel for POLITICO This article is part of the Danish Presidency of the EU special report. Denmark’s incoming EU presidency is set to coincide with a bruising debate over the future of farming in Europe, and Copenhagen wants climate at the center of it. Fresh off a historic domestic deal to tax agricultural emissions, Danish officials are touting their country’s “high ambitions” for green policy. Minister for Green Transition Jeppe Bruus said Denmark hopes to infuse its six-month presidency with lessons from home, where collaboration with farmers and a sweeping Green Tripartite Agreement last year marked a rare political consensus on climate and agriculture. But as Denmark prepares to steer the Council of the EU from July, it finds itself pitching a climate-forward message to a bloc moving in the opposite direction. After more than a year of farmer unrest, a rightward shift in the European Parliament, and pullback from Ursula von der Leyen’s first-term Green Deal, the stage is set for a presidency marked more by firefighting than forward motion. “Look, we can actually solve a lot of those crises that we are in — the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the focus on creating jobs and growth — and deliver on food security … in a sustainable way,” Bruus told POLITICO in an interview. “We see this as a task that combines what we’re good at.” That pitch may resonate with green-minded stakeholders, but Denmark’s room for maneuver is limited. DOMESTIC SUCCESS, EUROPEAN CONSTRAINTS Last year, Denmark became the first country in the world to legislate a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture — something even climate-progressive nations like New Zealand couldn’t manage. Under the so-called Green Tripartite Agreement, livestock emissions will be taxed starting in 2030, with revenue earmarked for green initiatives and farmer support. The deal was driven by necessity as much as ambition. Agriculture accounts for nearly 29 percent of Denmark’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and around 80 percent of its methane and nitrous oxide emissions — largely from livestock and fertilizer use.  With a legally binding goal to cut national emissions by 70 percent by 2030, the government concluded that without action on farming, the math wouldn’t add up. The Green Tripartite Agreement aimed to correct course by combining a phased-in tax with funding to support biodiversity, peatland restoration and farmer adaptation — all while keeping the sector economically viable. This was not imposed from above. The deal was brokered through Denmark’s traditional tripartite model, bringing together government, farmers, industry and environmental groups. As Bruus himself noted, it followed carbon taxes on Danish industry and relied on a broader societal consensus about climate responsibility. Bruus said the government had deliberately avoided designing the tax “in opposition to the farming community,” and emphasized that every krone raised would be reinvested back into the sector. The EU, however, doesn’t really do social partnership. It does “trilogues” — opaque three-way negotiations between the Parliament, Council and the European Commission, often shielded from the kind of inclusive dialogue Copenhagen embraced at home. And while Denmark’s domestic conditions allowed for a relatively smooth political landing, the same cannot be said of Brussels. The backlash to green rules — both organized and opportunistic — has pulled the center of gravity toward deregulation and “competitiveness,” a favorite watchword in the Commission’s post-2024 narrative reset. GREEN MANDATE, SHRINKING MOMENTUM The timing couldn’t be more sensitive. The Danish presidency will take place during early discussions on the EU’s next medium-term budget running from 2028 to 2034, with implications for farm spending and the future Common Agricultural Policy. It will also likely inherit hot files from previous presidencies, including rules on new genomic techniques and animal transport — issues guaranteed to stir both emotional and political backlash. The political headwinds are gale force.  Last year’s farmer protests prompted von der Leyen to launch a “strategic dialogue” with the agriculture sector — one that while heavy on green promises, has so far yielded a legislative shift emphasizing income security and global competitiveness. Meanwhile, the EU looks set to loosen more green requirements on farmers, as governments across the spectrum embrace softer rules to ease pressure on farmers and public administrations alike. Even Denmark’s climate credibility isn’t immune to scrutiny. Critics of the Green Tripartite Agreement argue the agricultural carbon tax is too modest to drive systemic change — it starts at just 120 kroner (€16) per metric ton in 2030, rising to 300 kroner by 2035, less than half the industrial rate.  Others point to its heavy reliance on voluntary measures and unproven technologies like biochar — the production of black carbon from biomass — and methane inhibitors . Still others argue that it risks punishing farmers who have set about reducing their emissions through other means. “It’s a start, not a solution,” said one senior EU diplomat familiar with the file. “Denmark has credibility on green agriculture, but selling that model to 26 other countries will be a much harder job.” NOT SO UNITED FRONT Denmark finds itself politically isolated on green agricultural policy, according to Alan Matthews, professor emeritus of European agricultural policy at Trinity College Dublin. While it has taken the lead in tackling farming emissions, most other governments are reluctant to follow. Ireland, another heavy agricultural emitter, is scrambling to meet its climate targets without tanking its dairy and meat industries. Germany now has a conservative-led government with little appetite for green experimentation. Even at home, right-wing parties have questioned the climate tax, with farmers warning of job losses and production leakage . Denmark could find an ally in the Commission — but not necessarily where it matters most, Matthews said. “Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen and DG AGRI are not prioritizing a climate or green agenda, and the buzzwords now for agricultural policy are competitiveness and resilience, meaning adapting to climate change impacts,” he said, referring to the agricultural wing of the Commission that’s in charge of the CAP budget. By contrast, Matthews noted, the Commission’s climate wing, DG CLIMA, “is aware that agriculture will need to contribute much more if the EU’s ambitious 90 percent reduction target by 2040 is to be achieved, and is open to investigating new policy instruments. But DG CLIMA is not central to the future CAP negotiations, so its ambitions do not carry much weight.” The Danish presidency is unlikely to radically reshape EU agriculture policy, but it may help inject long-term thinking into a space dominated by short-term panic. The upcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy — expected in late 2025 — could offer an opening for the Danes to lead on a less politically toxic agenda, linking sustainability with industrial opportunity. Bruus has stressed that farmers won’t go green without a business case. At home, the Green Land Fund and other fiscal measures have sweetened the pill of new taxes. But at the EU level, any equivalent offer would require a major shift in the bloc’s budget logic — and a willingness to match rhetoric with revenue. That’s a tough sell, especially amid competing demands on the EU’s purse strings and an upcoming debate over who gets what in the post-2027 CAP. If Denmark is to make a mark, it may be less about securing bold new legislation and more about keeping the flame of the green transition alive at a time when many would rather extinguish it.