Ep21: Claude Turmes ‘Clean Energy Coalition-builder'

ML

Cleaning Up is brought to you by the Gilardini Foundation and the Liebreich Foundation.

My guest today is Claude Turmes. He is the Minister for Energy and Minister for Spatial Planning in the Luxembourg. Between 1999 and 2018 he was a member of the European Parliament. He was vice chairman of the Green group at the European Parliament: his fingerprints are all over most of the major energy legislation that was passed during that time. Please join me in welcoming to Cleaning Up Claude Turmes. Claude, welcome to Cleaning Up!

CT

Good evening.

ML

So tell me where you are right now? Are you as locked down as we are here in London?

CT

So in Luxembourg, we have still a lockdown-light. But our figures are a bit too high. So maybe that we will have to tighten it. So it's and every meeting of the government we are really torn between: do we really need to shut down? Or should we keep the economy up. So it's, it's tough, it's tough decisions. Now, it's not easy.

ML

But for the moment, you're still allowed to do things like go out for a walk with a dog go out for a run, and so on.

CT

Oh, the good thing about Luxembourg is that it's not as densely populated like a city like London. So we do not need to do these restrictions, which I find really hard, which is one kilometre round your house bit like in France. So here even when in March, April, we did almost a complete lockdown. People were allowed to walk out and even to take a car to go to a forest. So and we have a lot of beautiful forests. We have some nice parks in the city. And that helps to keep the mood of the people up and running.

ML

Yes, I was hearing today from a friend that in Greece, there's a thriving business in renting dogs because you're not allowed to go for a walk unless you have a dog. So now people are renting dogs. It's terrible. It's not it shouldn't be funny, but it is of course slightly amusing. In the midst of this terrible pandemic. Now I want to actually I was hoping that you would say something like, you know, I went for a run today because then I could take you back to your distant past just to give our audience a feel for who you are as a person. You studied sports and you were a teacher.

CT

Yes. So my first hobby in life was sports. My father had a cafe, which was the place where football clubs, the basket club handball, the others, the basically. Uh, how do you call this their social, they were seated, officially in my father's cafe. And so I was set all my, my, my childhood and then I was so captured by that I decided to make it my profession. So I was a teacher for sports in secondary schools. And I did that full time until I think I was 26, 27. And then half time, I was at Friends of CRS Luxembourg Climate and Energy campaigners. So that's a bit how I started to get involved in national politics and also in in European politics.

ML

And then very relatively quickly, you became a member of the European Parliament in 1999. If I'm not wrong,

CT

Yes, that was a funny story. Because I had created a Climate Alliance Luxembourg, after having been as an NGO representative in Rio de Janeiro in 92. That was not a big success. And when coming back, I helped to get the local authorities involved in in climate issues. And that allowed me to get closer to some members of the Green Party and I think six months before the European elections, so it was end of 1998, I managed to get on the list of the Green Party I was not engaged in in political party politics, because the NGO policy Friends of CRS in Luxembourg was that you are independent from political parties. And then I was elected. And the good thing was at that time, as the Greens in the European Parliament didn't really have an energy campaigner. And so I was filling this void. So I became the coordinator for energy and for industrial policy of the Greens in 99.

ML

Okay, now we go on till we get on to the European, the European Parliament phase of your life, I just fascinated by these kind of points where people's lives change. So when you asked to be added to the list for the Green Party in 1998, did you do a lot of thinking about it? Did you understand that this could well change your life? Had they said no. Would you have kind of come back again? And again until they said yes? Or was that sort of a spur of the moment thing?

CT

No, it was, I think I was walking in, I don't know, it was the Swiss or the French Alps, in probably in 97. And at that time, I was also a member of the executive committee of friends of the CRS Europe, and we always discussed, we really have to go to the parliament and lobby these guys. And once sitting in it, I will say, look, go yourself. And then probably these kind of things happen is possible in smaller countries. And because I was close to some Greens, because there was

nobody really very, very fond of going to European parliament, I got into the list. And it took me a beer to bribe one of the guys who and then somebody one or two others to who said . This is a good guy, he knows that he comes from outside, it's really good for our campaign. Good. And then I was in

ML

And you know, the subtitle for Cleaning Up is "leadership in an age of climate change". And, you know, sometimes it strikes me that people don't do the most basic things like ask whether they themselves could stand for election or, you know, we have a lot of a lot of people work incredibly hard NGOs and all sorts of ways. But they don't they don't make the jump to say I'm going to be a candidate. And in fact, you know, a number of people have told me I should be a candidate. And I kind of had to hang back. But you just said that that's going to be it you're going to do it.

CT

Yeah, good. I think you need leadership. Also in NGOs, I think you need leadership in in, in business. Yeah, and good. And for me, it was almost a natural continuity of being a climate or an energy activist at the NGO level, and then having the opportunity to have a bit of a longer stick or more leverage by moving up.

ML

And then so you are then an MEP from 1999 through until 2018. So 19 years as an MEP, and your fingerprints are pretty much over all of the legislation, everything that kind of happened around energy in that period. You either led or you are the rapporteur or in some way you're involved. Is that a fair statement?

CT

It's a fair statement. And why was it so because as I was the Green coordinator, I basically was able to pick the bigger fights for the Greens. And in the European Parliament, each and every legislation is basically decided by six or eight members of parliament from different political groups. And because I was involved in energy, already 10 years before I came to the European Parliament, I had, of course, certain expertise. So it was this combination of being basically one of the leaders of the Greens in European Parliament, plus bringing the expertise. And as an NGO person before, I was used to work with different political party cultures, so I knew how conservative roughly thinks and I knew how you can approach a socialist. And by the way, and that's something I don't know if that's really known in in UK is the Lib Dems, the British Lib Dems were basically my best ally, and almost all EU legislation, on efficiency on renewables, getting the market, right, getting a transmission system operators to work together, it was the first thing I always did is getting a good LibDem, like Nick Clegg at a certain moment, or Fiona Hall afterwards, to be on the file with me, then we try to get a progressive socialist, or social democrat, which is

not always the case you have in the Social Democrats, you can also have a lot of bit of reactionary people when it comes to energy. And then we sat we had, we were close to a majority. And sometimes the trick was to divide the bits of conservatives, between conservatives maybe like you who are progressive, on energy, and other conservatives so we were we, that was the secret of winning, almost all legislations, in the Parliament with progressive majorities. And that pulled up reasonably good proposal of EU Commission, which then we put up by our vote in the parliament. And then of course, afterwards, it's the issue of negotiating with the Council. And that is what took me most, most years, or much longer to have enough connections, in Madrid, in Berlin, in London, in Paris, in his bigger countries, in order to also try to, to work with certain important governments or to sometimes to divide them.

ML

This is so this is fascinating, because this is an environment where coalition, you can do nothing without a coalition, which is a little bit different from other political systems. And I want to come back to how you sort of slice and dice different political positions. That's fascinating. But just for our, our audience, what we try and do with Cleaning Up is we're not trying to talk to the great experts, they may well be interested. I hope they are. But we're also trying to have a broad audience. So you've you are describing the process as an MEP that's a member of European Parliament. But you've also mentioned the Council. And you've mentioned that well, you haven't mentioned but there's also the Commission. So how does it work ? You know, let's do if we could do EU Policy Sausage Making 101? How does How do you get a piece of legislation? The very the sort of the, I guess, the 101 version, the short version? How did those three groups play?

CT

So the European Commission is the one who basically drafts the first proposal. And so of course, while drafting that you have to try to influence and to push them already. And for example, on the coal issue, with this idea to cap the subsidies for coal with the 550 gramme per kilowatt hour, I first had to work a lot of Commission to get it in. Good. And then you have a text from Commission, which has so and that text is sent in parallel to the government's 28 now 27 governments, which we call technically the Council. And then you have almost every week you have an energy working group of the 27 or 28 governments, where's the civil servants sit together and then analyse this piece of legislation and see do a negotiation position and mandate for the government and in parallel you have the European Parliament, which votes also, a text often in the respective Committee, which is the Energy and Industry Committee and the

ML

That's a committee on which you sat for

CT

That is, so it's important that you have a grip on the committee where you have a lot of legislation done. And then of course, often, we had a more ambitious position, let's say we had 25% of renewables for 2020, the government's had maybe lower to 17. And then you have these kind of bargaining. And that's called technically trialogue. So you have Commission in the room as a neutral, honest broker, and you have the country who runs the presidency during six months, for the 28 or 27 governments, who has a mandate, which I described before, and then you negotiate hours, hours, hours, nights, nights, nights, and then you get through legislation. And the good thing is, once the legislation is done, every government in Europe has to apply it. So you do legislation for 450 million. Now that Britain is out, I haven't done the numbers yet.

ML

It's still big, it's still a lot of people

CT

It's the continent. And the book is often not understood is when you pass a legislation that has an impact, which is even bigger than Europe, because Europe is still with the European Union is still a big part of the world market. So when we did legislation, for example, on chemicals, the Chinese copied it. And even in the US, it was largely the same legislation adopted two or three years later, because for the big multinationals, it would have been much more difficult to have different quality of products, one very high environmentally for Europe and then producing other stuff for other markets. So and that is what why European Union has an influence not only on European citizens and life but also at global level?

ML

Okay, so now let's talk about the this kind of political slicing and dicing, the segmentation. I've said many times that I think the key core constituency that one has to speak to in all of this is the centre-right. And I say that, of course, because that's me. So I'm so self-centred. But also, the reason I say it is because you kind of get on climate action, you get a lot of the time that you know, the folks on the left are all persuaded committed, I personally don't believe that they have the best policies, but then kind of on board, then you get the people who are, you know, further to the right, and they'll never be persuaded. But if you want to get a consensus, and I think we need to start with consensus as of the sort of 60-65% because you know, when things get tough, some people will all kind of peel off in different directions. And you will never get to that 60-65% without the centre-right? That's my first reason. And my second reason is that that's generally the business community, the business community is generally not extreme on either way, there may be some centre-left, but a lot of them are centre,-right. And without them and their resources and their engagement in the innovation process in the asset allocation, you're going nowhere. So I think that that's always the key constituency. But is that how you? Would you

agree with that? Or am I just kind of shining too much light on people who might happen to agree with?

CT

No, I think, years where basically, I had a majority, without the conservatives, I was happy to do a majority even it was a tiny one, because that allowed me to have more ambition before negotiating with the governments. But there were years where basically, we needed it. And then as I explained before, you have, for example, the Portuguese conservatives, very progressive on energy politics, the Greek conservatives, more progressive than others. And then Swedish we had I had the great guy on Anders Wijkman from Sweden. And then you have a wonderful

ML

I know Anders. Anders is not really a conservative. I mean, he's a Club of Rome.

CT

He was on the ticket of the Swedish Conservative Party, so he was sitting up in parliament on with the Conservative Party and that was extremely helpful. And probably the most powerful member of European Parliament is the guy who is called Peter Liese, who is the German MEP and I think he has been there longer than myself. And he is on the environmental committee. And he is often is very convinced that we need to move on environment that we have to prevent climate change. He is often the dealmaker, because he is often the swing.

ML

What's fascinating here is the you know, I call it the sausage making, and it is really complex, but it's also playing out, not just in the European Parliament or in the EU with the Commission on the council, but of course, it plays out in every country. There's a analogous process working within Germany about people who want to move more quickly to clean transportation. And some people want to champion this approach. And some people want to champion that. And, and so this kind of coalition building, it's ferociously important, but I think we heard a couple of episodes ago, I think it was Episode 18, from Kandeh Yumkella, Sustainable Energy for All about his process of putting together the coalition's just within the within the UN to get anything done was years of campaigning, it was like four dimensional chess to get stuff done. And you know, when you get people like, like Kandeh and yourself, then it gets done. And if you don't have people like that, my sense is it doesn't get done.

CT

So I think you need to be respected for your expertise. That is probably one one of and then of course, you need to work a lot on. Okay, who is who is where and the fascinating thing for me in European Parliament was in order to understand who within the conservatives, for example, I can

we know that I had, of course, to understand, what is the energy policy of Sweden? What is the one of Portugal? What is the one of Greece done? Of course, sometimes also, what is the personal commitment of that policymaker?

ML

So now, I'm going to put you on the spot. President, I'm not sure if he's called the president elect, or the presumed President Elect, Joe Biden is going to have some of this sausage making some of this coalition building to do because he's got on the one hand, some, some pretty extreme, you know, green new deal you know a flank of his own party. But on the other hand, there may be I don't know, and this is maybe the question, there may be some of the Republicans that can be won over to support perhaps it's a carbon fee and dividend programme or a very heavily innovation based clean energy programme. What's your advice? You know, to either to him or to his incoming Secretary of Energy? Should he go left? Or should he go rght? Should he go to the Green New Deal folks? Or kind of create your own the centre?

CT

Yeah, but Mr. Biden is longer in politics than myself. And he has a real reputation of having been an engineer of making coalitions and coalitions who won in the American political system, I think without Biden, Obamacare would never have gone through. So Obama sent him to the House in order to get it done. And then of course, when it comes to energy politics, it's also about business. So Texas has fantastic wind conditions. So of course, you will look around and then on for example, on car making. Look with Elon Musk, I think that is equilibrium of electric versus gasoline or diesel. There is not a lot of diesel outside this pure German cheating diesels in America, so I think that is where probably he will also look at. But look, who am I to tell such an experienced policymaker. And I think maybe history will say we were such close to lose the climate battle, because another four years of Trump, I think that Trump was a real break in the system and Biden, he's committed, and that will bring a completely different move also, because the critical mass also in in business of batteries, electric cars. For America, what is really important is offshore wind, where we have a lot of European companies, if it's Siemens as a technology provider, or Ørsted, and others. So I think it's it will be a fascinating, fascinating moment to work now with the American administration.

ML

Well, it certainly it certainly feels like an exciting moment in history. Before we may be able to come back to that depending on time, but I do want to just return to you know, you've lets return from the US just for a moment to Europe before you return to Luxembourg politics. There. Were a number of key pieces of legislation. What are your kind of greatest hits one of the most important ones? Because you left before the European Green Deal, did you not?

CT

Yes. So I left in 2018, because one of my friends in the Luxembourgish government died. We were three months before elections, so I definitely had to come back. We won the elections. And as therefore I stayed also as the Minister of Energy. So I think for me, but what else is two or three most important I think we broke up the electricity monopolies. I was a rapporteur with Nick Clegg as the shadow in I think that was 2002-2003 where we basically started to say, unbundling of grid with supply and trade is key. And I think that that is that was so important to get more independence from the grid, because otherwise, as the monopolists, they would have done much more tricks against the renewables and getting renewables connected service. So I think let's not underestimate that we created a transparent market also by slicing the bit giants. The second is, of course, the legislation which is called equal design, which is standards for refrigerators, TVs, everything. And that is the most progressive standard setting machine in the world. And that was the legislation, which was, by the way done during a British presidency in 2004-2005 or 2006. And at that helps energy efficiency in Europe has really gone up and we saw the mountain, then we come to at the another pieces, we have legislation on near zero energy buildings, which was my amendment, which I won to the very end. So out of this year, every building in Europe has to be a near zero energy. And that is good, because new buildings is a part of the key, but it is an important cake. And then, of course, probably is the one for which I'm most known within energy circle is the renewable energy directive, which was finalised in in December 2008. And which ends this December

ML

In 2020

CT

Yes, 2020. And look, you have been one of the careful observers of what happened, especially to the cost. So without a directive, I think the volume would not have been there. And of course, you can discuss feed in versus others. And I don't know if you are aware. So one man who helped to win this directive is Ed Miliband, when his brother was a minister, I got nowhere we seem on binding targets. And then luckily, Gordon Brown did the change in the government. And Ed came in, and at least really convinced, he understood immediately why we need binding targets to create an investment certainty. And he did this against the whole British administration, his own administration was fiercely yesterday against idea I know where you stand on it. But I tell you, without that, offshore wind in the UK would not have been, as it was, and, of course without binding targets. Can you imagine any investments in Eastern Europe, in the kind of post communistic oligopoly system, which you very much still have in these countries?

ML

Yeah, it's a funny thing. I mean, there's a whole there's a whole programme to be done on what was Ed Miliband's legacy, because of course, he also presided over the passage of the Climate Change Act, which was put into law, our climate change obligations. But on the other hand, the Labour administration, over that period missed every single Climate and Energy target that was put in front of it, because you know, and it was just I mean, didn't miss by a little bit it missed by a country mile. And so, you know, there was very interesting things that happened

CT

The problem is, however, also the inertia which you have in the system, I think, when of course, you can, you need two, three, four years, before you can see the results, and I think Ed had hardly two years, he was a Minister for Energy. It was it for two years. So,

ML

I would, I would argue still, that the big moves in the UK were things like moving to reverse auctions, which really pushed down the costs. I mean, that was the that was incredibly important. That was then there was the decision to step out of coal, to shut coal, there was the floor price for carbon. I mean, these are all extraordinary. I mean, and the funny thing is when that when we do that programme, that history that I don't even know how these things happen, right? I'm a conservative. I'm a member of the UK Conservative but, and I have no idea how these decisions were taken. They seem to me to be almost like deus ex machina, we woke up one day and Osborn had put in a floor price for carbon. I don't ever talk about it. There was no syndication of that in the industry, it just suddenly happened. Good. Well, it was very effective.

CT

I was, at that times I was really often in London, I have a good friend, sitting in the British administration who worked with me very closely, when we did see the breakup of the big German and French oligopolies. Because that was important for the UK because the UK government was afraid that if the Germans and the French could block any gas coming over and with the North Sea gas going down, so and the carbon floor price was discussed for for quite some time. And it is a fantastic instrument. The pity is that Germany. Last year, when it finally had enough political pressure to move out of coal, Germany would have had the choice to introduce with the rest of Western Europe, Netherlands was in favour of a carbon floor price Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Austria, and still and Germany didn't join. And we, we had done proposals to do a Western Europe carbon floor press because these markets are very much interlinked. And Germany refused to do it. And because they refused to do it. Now they have to pay billions to the coal companies. So the British policy with a carbon floor was a much, much better way. Then, for example, what Germany has now.

ML

since I put you on the spot asking what you would advise Joe Biden, I'm also going to put you on the spot and ask about some German you there's one mistake that you find that Germany, you know, sort of jumped the wrong way. But also Germany pushed for the early exit of its nuclear programme. And you're on the record as being anti-nuclear. But the consequences of that was decades more coal. How does that feel?

CT

No, no, no that is. I'm astonished that you tell the story because this that the story is EDF France's interpretation of what happened in Germany. You have to be aware that in 2007, and 2008 so before Lehman Brothers, the CO2 price was at 20-25. At that moment, Germany had 50, five- zero gigawatt of gas, gas power plants. And coal was even below. So and the reason why German coal power plants have continued to run is the fact that after Lehman Brothers, the EU ETS, the CO2 price went down and then in the merit order, coal was again, better placed than gas. And that is the real story is that coal power plants run because in the merit order, they are before gas, and because Germany is a fantastic net exporter is what in some years, Germany between 2010 to 2020 was a bigger net exporter of electricity than France. So that the coal power plants run was not for to keep up the lights in Germany. It was just because we were not able to fix the CO2 price in the EU trading system.

ML

Okay. But there is a different interpretation there, which is that Germany basically outsourced its, you know, the carbon price to the EU. The EU ETS, of course was it was a disaster in that decade. But what was non-negotiable for Germany was shutting its nuclear plants. So it prioritised shutting nuclear over climate action. And you could say maybe that wasn't fully the intention at the time, but it became very clear that that was what was happening. And no action was taken year after year. And even now Germany is going to shut its coal in 2038. I mean, the UK, the dirty man of Europe is going to be completely out of coal by 2025. Already, we only have 1 or 2%. So the mix the UK saying we're going to keep the nuclear shift to renewables shift to some gas and get rid of the coal. I mean, this looks like an absolute blinder of a policy, even if it was accidental, compared to Germany.

CT

Look, Michael, you are known to be a market guy. And now in order to defend nuclear, you suddenly ignore the market, it will tell you it says only one reason, which is the market price. And, of course, the German RWE, the German coal companies, were happy about it. But it's just not true that German coal, because it's if the CO2 price would have been at 25-30-35, Germany would have closed down the nuclear and would have had a lot of gas power stations very efficient, and much, much less coal running. And that would have been the case everywhere in Europe.

ML

But how can you talk about a market I'm sorry to interrupt but you know, this is this is a fake market, right? Because there's nuclear power, a large amount of nuclear plants, creating a large amount of near zero carbon power, very cheap at the margins. And it's being discriminated against and pushed out because there's all this money being pushed towards renewables, 20-20- 20 binding targets, etc, etc, there's poor old nuclear, producing exactly the commodity we need, but without the support, and then you call then you say it's a market. It's not a market, it's nothing like a market.,

CT

Come on. It's, of course, it's an artificial market. And it's a drama, it's a real drama, that Europe was not able to fix its CO2 pricing between 2010-2016/2017. It took us until 2017, with a lot of tricks to get this up and running, and, and that is. Look, we were fighting for it. And look, we just didn't get it done, especially also against the industrial lobby. Not the, I think at the end of the day is the energy political, the energy lobbies, had seen that renewables were mature enough that they could change into another business, but it was the big German industry, steel, chemicals, they could, it's, of course it and if the Greens would have been in a German government earlier, you may be right that Germany would have as the government fought harder to get the CO2 price. But it's again, so I repeat it, it's completely wrong. It's not renewables in and then nuclear out, it's the change was between gas and coal, right.

ML

Ok, I got two other things that I want to cover. And, and I know that if I come back and say, oh, it was so it was the failure of the EU institutions to get the right carbon price, and then we'll get onto Brexit, and then we'll never be finished, I'll have to pour myself a second beer. But the two topics I would love to cover would be the EU Green Deal, which you now participate in as a minister, the Minister of Energy in Luxembourg, and also the global negotiations. So in whichever order you would prefer, perhaps, perhaps Let's start with the EU Green Deal, because that was where you were just handing over when you when you went back to Luxembourg. And you're still involved in that very much. So what is it? Is it as you would want? What are you pleased about, what do you think is weak, if anything?

CT

So what is great is that finally, we are learning a bit the lessons from Lehman Brothers and this time, it's much more about creating future-oriented industry infrastructure. So there is a 30% earmarking, to go into climate, the weak thing is, is that the money will go to national governments. And so what we need today

ML

And when you say 'that money', that's the trillion, the 1.1 trillion Green Deal pot

CT

The trillion money is, is all the money is going down or it's going to national. And I was fighting to get a part of support of the money to stay at European level in order to get a quick rollout of electricity grid in in the North Sea and in the Baltic Sea. Offshore wind of course with electrolyzers put at the right place. We need urgently charging stations for electric cars, but even more we need to now to build up charging stations for electric trucks. We need money for renovation and the bad thing is that, that it's only 30% of earmarking for climate and it's not done in a way to have big European project and come on, we are late on climate change. So we need Big things to to move quick and we need very fast progress on offshore wind. And if everybody is staying in its national box, that will just not happen. And the sad thing is, of course that was Brexit, the whole rollout of offshore wind coordinated, is gets even more difficult.

ML

I hear you on the interconnections, on the grid issues. And there's definitely a need to coordinate on things, like I'm so glad you mentioned electric trucks, our guest on I'm not sure which episode it was, I think it was something like Episode 15 was Auke Hoekstra, whom you may know, a Dutch researcher with the TU Eindhoven who is absolutely convinced and very convincing that we're going to get electric trucks, not fuel cell trucks. But yeah, we need to coordinate those sorts of decisions. I'm not sure I'm convinced we need to spend the money at the central level. You're very convinced that the EU is a good custodian of money and spending.

CT

Now and also because the EU is doing much more blending of monies than before.

ML

Via the EIB

CT

Via the EIB but yeah, but the EIB needs so is it. Why is the EIB when you the EIB strong when it has a lot of money billions from the budget to put as the guarantee and as a leverage. So the one thing I think which Juncker did when he was the President of the Comission did well is that he tried to better use EU money. And the best money is of course the one which you can blend because then you leverage, leverage more.

ML

Yeah. And what about some of the elements there's the renovation wave, and very topical right now is hydrogen.

CT

So hydrogen is this hype n hydrogen is making me a bit nervous and also bit sad. Because, look, it's so easy as long as you don't have to.. you need renewables. Without it doesn't make sense to make hydrogen out of fossil. So you need renewables, you have to build it up and then you have an electrolyzer where you, where you lose a lot of energy because of the lower efficiency. So therefore hydrogen is a very expensive product and it will stay expensive. Which means we have to use it in areas where electricity which will be much cheaper, it cannot go.

ML

laughing because there was a Heineken slogan, I'm drinking Heineken, there was a Heineken slogan in the 1970s and 80s, saying that Heineken reaches the parts that other beers cannot reach. For me the role of hydrogen to decarbonize the parts of the economy that other technologies electricity principally cannot reach. Yes, that's what it should be used for.

CT

Yeah. And then and in this moment, we have a fight about because there is a lot of money in this EU Green Deal. Now, I'm afraid that a lot of stupid things can happen, which is subsidising electrolyzers, which are just linked to the national energy mix. And then not on the right places. So I'm fighting in these days to get a locational signal for electrolyzers. And then, of course, the next thing is that we need to think about a pure hydrogen transportation pipeline, pipeline transportation backbone. And yesterday, I had a really encouraging talk to one investor who thinks that because in Spain, you can do solar for something between 10 and 15 eurocents, and now building up a gigafactory for having the scaling up of electrolyzers, a bit like we did for wind turbines for batteries, and that's a combination of the two, he will be able to produce hydrogen for 1.5 euro per kilogramme, and that is what you need. But this is a tricky question. So when and he thinks that every electricity, renewable electricity, which is not below 15 eurocents per kilowatt hour is just too expensive. And that, of course, questions now, also the issue of the story, which a lot of us thought would be offshore wind plus electrolyzers. So, we have, we have to So, and anyway, if we need to electrify heating, we need to electrify transport, that is easy gains. So, for that we need a lot of, that will raise the electricity demand. So, we need a lot of renewables now. And therefore, so the good news is, the Commission now has taken out a lot of our arguments on why offshore wind is so important offshore wind is now more than North Sea. It's also in the Baltic Sea. It's even in the Black Sea, we have floating offshore, which I think is the next big thing, which will happen in renewables. And so what the most important thing to do now is massive acceleration of renewable output. And that will only happen if the grid companies do

clever things. So with copper alone, we will not be able to do it, we have to bring much more intelligence also, to the power grid.

ML

Well, let's leave the renovation wave because I want to come back to that, you know, so what are you able to do from within Luxembourg? To what extent can you still work on, you know, offshore wind, you're one of the few European countries that has no coastline at all. So how do you work on offshore wind? Tell me.

CT

I'm part of the North Sea countries because the North Sea countries are coordinated by the Benelux Secretariat. So I'm sitting at the table and I can tell you we have pushed up the ambition. And we are now fighting to get stable investment instruments and in Luxembourg, I have five actors, the one you have mentioned, EIB is the biggest financier, I have also investment funds in Luxembourg, which are backing offshore wind, we have ESPON. Do you know what ESPON is? It is the centre of excellence of the Commission on spatial planning. And now we are orientating them also to maritime spatial planning because one of the most important things to get quick wins in offshore wind is we have to plan beyond national borders. So ESPON a small unit situated 200 metres from where I'm sitting now is very instrumental that I have the <unclear> which is one of the big suppliers. Now also thinking about from a supplier for the offshore wind industry to become a project manager and then five is we have fought for having possibility for landlocked countries to tender together with the countries which have coast. So and this will be a centrepiece of the Commission's document on offshore wind, which will come out soon. And so my intention is to do what I can do reasonably in Luxembourg with solar, wind, onshore wind, some biomass, and then I will try to get in a joint tender with Belgium for a big offshore, with Denmark with whomever. I was watching Copenhagen on the offshore conference, I said Luxembourg is a superpower when it comes to offshore wind.

CT

Very good. And for Luxembourg, have you looked at geothermal recently?

CT

Yes. And we are now pioneering geothermal, we at what is it, 350 metres probably we can get to water which is hot enough to heat whole areas. And I'm also the Minister for spatial planning. And so my other big thing is, so we are building, Luxembourg is the fastest growing OECD country in population we are growing fast in populations as Mexico. So, we have a real housing crisis in the sense prices are almost as mad as in London now. And so, what we do know is we are recycling old industrial sites. And then of course, my hobby now is to get this done completely

car free, all the cars are just parked at parking houses. And then from there we go with bikes with electric scooters and so on. So, spatial planning is very important. Maritime spatial planning will be key for Europe now and urban planning will be so without urban planning because you will never get to zero. And we need to get to zero quick. Why? Because the so called lifestyle changes. I own a car or I don't own a car, I take a bus or I take a bike. All of that will only happen at massive scale if the infrastructure is there. Therefore planning and being a planning minister is the ultimate way to accelerate this and we are doing a 2050 competition between 10 international teams now to get to define or to try to define what is the zero carbon territory. So we call this Luxembourg in Transition. And it's done not only on Luxembourg territory, because we have so we have 300,000 commuters from outside coming to Luxembourg. So it will be a greater Luxembourg or greater region experiment. So so and so we need also to work beyond technology on getting the right infrastructure and we need to eat less meat.

ML

That's another fabulous topic. It's just, you know, at some point, we'll have to have you back on Cleaning Up to talk about some of the things we've had to move on but beyond because the other thing is, of course, that we're going into COP26 it's the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement is a very critical, UNFCCC meeting. And you are going to be the you know, that one of the key players, you know, for your government, no doubt with your colleagues from the foreign ministry, I'm guessing. I've asked you for advice to Joe Biden, I've asked you for advice to the Germans to the you know, what advice would you have? Or what are your hopes for Cop26, in Glasgow in December, next year.

CT

So thanks for thinking that I'm a key player. The key player from Luxembourg is my colleague, Minister of Environment Carole Dieschbourg, she was heading the EU in Paris. And she is still in in business. So with her experience will be a key player in Glasgow, so probably there is three things which I hope that we can engineer. One is I think we need to work on G20. So we you need to pre-cook with the big countries. The good news is the most recent Chinese statement, now from having Trump out of the game and Biden in I think G20 is extremely important. And we have with Germany with France, also with the UK, I think we have key players. And that has to be well coordinated also, between the those from the European continent, and I still count UK a bit to that family.

ML

We're still we're still in Europe, nothing changed. We didn't, we didn't go we didn't move the country.

CT

I mean, I always said, Look, it's good that we have this interconnection cables, because otherwise, Britain will drift completely over into Texan style politics. And with Boris, I think we are a bit on this trip. So the second thing is, there needs to be money on the table to get the G77. But I think, look, Africa, they don't meet a lot. And they have a lot of consequences. So we need to help them. The good news is, with what we have achieved now on solar panels, we can have solar everywhere in Africa, and combining it with IT, mobile phones. So Africa can be a thrilling continent very quick, but they need some money on the table. Also from, let's say the richer countries or the more industrialised countries. And so third thing is having ex ante important businesses to commit as think it's of course, the renewable industry, I think we should have to see if we can get I don't know Elon Musk, Diess from Volkswagen and two or three Chinese who produced most of the electric cars to do something together. And the one thing where I try to work together with also with other governments is having a conference on standard setting for appliances. So minimum standards for all kinds of appliances, because this is a quick win, which we can get. And so I'm hoping together with Fatih Birol of IEA also having some contacts with the British government that we in all parts of the solutions, we need to have, and standard setting is less business is more regulations. So we need to fly in a to a meeting or to have a video with the one who sets the standards in China, in India, in Japan in South Korea, in US in Europe. If these 8 people meet and try to anticipate, okay, what is what is the next big thing data centres So we need a standard for data centres. Data centres need a performance standard which is below one and not above one. So, because we have immersion cooling, so we can now have data centres in the city centres and takes the heat, which you need anyway because which will have any way because we have electricity driving the servers, and this heat is like having geothermal in the middle of a city. So, these IT servers, data centres, that's a global industry. So we need global standards.

ML

Yeah. So, you know, earlier, I asked you about the sausage making, and I said that it's kind of like four dimensional chess. And what I now see is I was wrong. It's not four dimensional chess it's five dimensional chess, because you've got all of these international linkages, whether it's around standards, whether it's the COP negotiations, you've got the EU, you've got the countries, you've got the industries within the countries. I mean, you've given us a masterclass in five-dimensional climate and energy chess. So unfortunately, we're out of time, we're going to have to leave it there. But I'd really like to thank you, for your time with us this evening. Ah, and you've got a book there. What is that book? No, that's upside down. Okay, so we're gonna put a link Energy Transformation and Opportunity for Europe by Claude Turmes. And we're gonna put a link to that

CT

That's a summary of sausage making

ML

The summary of sausage making: you should give it a subtitle “Five-Dimensional Chess-Based Sausage Making” by Claude Turmes. What we'll do, we'll put a link to that into the show notes. Is it a new book? Have you just published it?

CT

I finished it in end of 2017, early 2018. And it's a bit of look when. And then basically, I had to move out of. Sometimes in life incredible things happen.

ML

Okay, well,

CT

But the funny thing is, I did the last hundred pages is about what has to happen after 2018. So we can check now if, if you and others are up to it.

ML

Very good. Very good. And so thank you very much. My only final closing comments on the book which we'll put a link into the show notes is I don't recall receiving a signed copy there, Claude, maybe that's why it wasn't I didn't know when it had been published, but we can remedy that.

CT

When I woke up this morning I thought: Claude, Michael, will be so angry at you because he never got the book.

ML

I could never be angry at you. I can only be grateful for the time you've spent. Thank you so much. And I wish you a wonderful evening in Luxembourg.

CT

See you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

ML

So that was Claude Turmes, who is now Minister of Spatial Planning and Energy in Luxembourg, but for nearly 20 years was an MEP and deeply involved in all of the energy legislation in Europe during that time, giving us a master class in 4D or 5D chess that is required to get energy legislation done on route to net zero. My guest next week on Cleaning Up is one of the great entrepreneurs in smart mobility, Robin Chase is one of the co-founders of Zipcar. She's founded

numerous other mobility startups, she's written a book about the sharing economy called “Peers Incorporated”, is one of the great visionaries and thinkers about the future of transport and the future of our cities. Please join me this time next week