Hello, I'm Timothy Garton Ash, welcome to the Europe Stories podcast, what the young Europeans want the European Union to do and to be.
Over the last three years,
an amazing group of young Europeans have worked with me here at the European Studies Centre at Oxford University to answer this question.
And this podcast will present their findings.
Host Anna and Luckhurst say have a series of conversations with the authors of our concluding report and give you their answers.
I can see from the reflection behind you that you're in a very sunny place.
I am currently in the Azores in an island called Sweida, which means the Third Island, a very special night.
So we're talking about climate today.
And one of the really provocative suggestions in this chapter that we're going to talk about with our guests as well is banning short haul flights.
Which is a specific policy, obviously also linked up with all kinds of other transport and infrastructural proposals that would have to be in place,
and I'm just thinking about, well, the Azores are a bit far out,
but it would be very difficult indeed to to get there and see your family without short haul flights and even on the mainland.
I just think it's quite provocative as a suggestion, because so many of us, I think,
especially young people, are now used to short and inexpensive flights on the European continent.
So what do you think? I mean, like from your own perspective, how do you react when you hear a proposal to ban short haul flights?
First of all, I'm always sensitive to proposals that are about banning first and foremost before trying to create incentives for people to choose
and for companies to present services that are perhaps better aligned with society's interests and obviously the planet's interests.
But I understand the sense of urgency. So I don't know if in hindsight there are other things that we could have done.
But I think the sense of urgency does justify more governmental intervention,
even though I would like to see alternatives being tried out before we go to that extent.
That said, I think that as long as there are alternatives,
I think banning short flights is an appropriate solution for this in terms of trade offs and costs for Europeans and non Europeans staying in Europe,
I think it makes sense. So what to do with the remotest parts of the world?
Is it really important that they're that connected? For instance, the Azores used to be the poorest region in Europe.
Nowadays, you come here and, you know, it's it's a wonderful region to visit.
You're not in one for anything here. And it's physically connected to the rest of the world because you have a flight every day.
And it's you know, now that we know everything we do about environmental change, this this does sound excessive.
But you do have flights here every day. Every island is connected.
Every island now has an airport. And on the other hand, you have an interconnected world.
So a lot of connexion that could only be assured via transportation can now be
replaced to a certain extent with online communication so it can be dispensed with.
So the question is, now that we're in a more interconnected world,
does this justify assuring these connexions to faraway remote places via air transportation?
I have friends with more radical views on climate who, for instance,
refused to visit their families in other continents because that would entail flying.
And they don't want to do that.
And they're very critical of, oh, you know, I know that family is important, but there are other higher values right now.
And flying to the middle of the ocean, you know, just take a boat.
If it's that important for you. If both of these things matter to you, why not take a one week long ship to to the Azores?
What you're saying is so interesting because it actually gets to really important themes in this topic of climate,
which I hadn't thought about until you said it, which is one is the material aspect of how we're living in such an integrated economic
and political world and also everything down to our family and friends as well.
We're coming off of discussing free movement last week.
And of course, to some extent, free movement wouldn't be possible without a very efficient transportation infrastructure.
So there's that set of themes. But then there's also the other issue you mentioned,
which is about banning and your hesitation with banning coming out of obviously your own thinking and maybe your own experience.
But that's another theme that we're really digging into this chapter as well,
because we have these really interesting findings about perceptions of relative efficacy amongst democratic and authoritarian regimes.
And it also gets at this theme of coercion and the possible need for strong enforcement to combat climate change,
which was, again, very provocatively suggested by our poll,
which found that many young Europeans felt that democratic regimes were less effective than authoritarian ones at combating climate change.
So, yeah, anyway, that gives us a lot to think about.
And all of these themes were also captured in our conversation with Victoria and Real Ray of this
was an infamous student in Russian and Eastern European studies at St. Anthony's College in Oxford,
where she was Dundar scholar. And that's how she joined this programme, The Europe Stories Project.
Her research at the time focussed on the relationship between science, technology and politics,
ranging from the situation of Polish academia under a populist government to European climate politics.
And she's now moved on. She's about to start a PhD in sociology, also at Oxford.
And our other guest today is Victoria Heinzel, who hails from Germany,
although she did her undergraduate degree at Maastricht and then also her master's in European politics at Oxford.
Victoria joined us from Germany, where she's now doing her Ph.D. at the Autobio Home School of Management.
Can I take us a bit back in time and ask if growing up there was an event or a series of
events that made climate a big part of your life or you were thinking for transparency?
I joined the green. Well, the young Green Party in Switzerland when I was 16.
And I think most people one day join a party that very passionate about something.
And then also that's what a lot of people assume, that, OK, you joined the youth party. So you must have been really passionate about the issue.
But for me, it was more like I'm interested in politics and I want to get more involved as a person.
And there wasn't necessarily one single issue that mobilised me. I knew I was politically, personally more like on the left side of things.
But since it's on are basically two main options the Socialist Party and the Green Party.
And I end the picking the Green Party because I was like, OK, this is the one issue that is.
Slightly more important to me than perhaps some members of the Socialist Party,
and then I kind of ever since I've been interested in climate change and working on it from different angles,
to be honest, I rather stumbled into the chapter work. So I don't have a particularly interest in climate policy.
For me, from a political background, I'm rather decent education policy.
But when I first got in touch with the research results that we initially collected during polls and in interviews,
for me it became quite clear that the climate change chapter will be one of the most important one,
because there is such big importance of the climate issue for young Europeans in general, but also for the Europeans on this continent altogether.
So I think it will really be one of the decisive topics that will also influence
the opinion on the EU and our own feelings as Europeans in the coming years.
Climate change is so essential to really get the full picture and the whole story that we are interested in.
I have a question for you both precisely on that.
Are you opinion surveys found that the environment was a priority for most Europeans across all generations, as you just said.
Did this surprise you,
given that the general perception is that young Europeans are far more concerned with the environment than older generations are?
Or were you expecting this personally?
Surprised me. I mean, especially writing up the climate change chapter.
I had to go back to all of our data and look into it again and look at the age differences.
And it was a lot harder than expected to determine if there even is an age gap.
And but then if you look at the literature on this and other what other people have done so far, it becomes obvious that if I did that,
there's this massive age gap and if the young Europeans or young people in general are pushing for climate action is not necessarily true.
So it's not just our research,
but also sociological studies on age gaps regarding climate change issues that show that it's actually not that much of a difference necessarily.
I mean, I think that's a classic for social sciences. It's a lot more complicated than one might expect sometimes.
Even then one might have been hoping for.
And my closest environment, everyone is very aware of the urgency and they all agree, yes, it's an important topic,
but I fear that the major differences are usually in what we're willing to commit to the course.
So what are people willing to give up? How how urgent do you think?
Should it be a policy focus off of whoever we elect?
So for me, it was not a big surprise that most Europeans share the sense of urgency that we have to combat climate change.
But instead, it's more interesting to me to look at how far they differ and what we should do and can do next.
I would say while many of our interviewees converged on the priority of addressing climate change, the replies vary considerably.
Even suggesting what should be done about climate change is the biggest threat for mankind we have right now.
For me right now, the most important thing would be finding revoiced.
I really like European countries to move towards electric cars, cancelling all the subsidies to the mid and fossil fuel industries.
If we don't reset our economies and our societies on a sustainable peace in the next couple of years,
it will be very difficult for our kids to set it right. I kind of dream about this eco continent and I think it's possible.
A question I was wondering about while considering these differences in what different
age groups are willing to give up or willing to commit to for climate action,
and you point to a number of these differences. And in previous episodes, we've talked about this APC model, age, period and cohort.
So kind of trying to think about what is the driving factor behind certain tendencies or certain differences.
And I wonder whether you have a thought about whether these differences that you've observed in the data might be more aged,
maybe more period, or might be more cohort.
Obviously, you know, it's hard to know the future, but will Europeans who are young today still have these tendencies in 20 years?
I mean, no one knows. But do you see a trend or do you have an intuition about what's driving these changes between the generation today?
I mean, just looking at our data, I don't think it's that plausible target age just because the differences are just too small.
And it's also if we look at the actions like what kind of actions are Europeans willing to take?
It's not that young or Europeans are more willing to take one action than older Europeans.
So it just seems very much down to like personal preferences and lifestyle as well.
Cohort. I don't know what you think about that, but I'm not quite sure we can tell about that yet.
So right now it seems to be looking like a period effect.
So in one respect in which young Europeans seem to differ from older generations is on climate action.
Younger Europeans are more in favour of strong climate change interventions, such as restricting diets in public spaces and car use.
Nevertheless, they tend to not be more supportive of certain restrictions, things like banning short haul flights.
So restrictions that directly affect their lifestyle.
Did this disappoint you or did you expect a different result here?
How do you make sense of this apparent contradiction? And then how you feel about the victory?
Well, I wasn't that disappointed by it, because I think a lot of the time there's expectations that young Europeans care about climate change.
What are you willing to do more than older people?
To me is a bit unfair because I feel like everybody who cares about climate change should be willing to take action.
And also, I think this idea very much stems from the climate youth movement or the climate for you for free distribution.
And I think with these specific groups, it has been shown that they are willing to accept restrictions.
But of course, you can't extend this to every single young person in Europe who isn't necessarily part of that group.
I mean, from a marketing perspective, I guess we could have all hoped for a result of saying that 90 percent of young
Europeans want to ban short haul flights because that would have been so catchy.
And I think when we look at the movement in Europe for young Europeans is especially important to have
these options of short haul flights because they just using it so much also for their personal life.
So I think it just realistic that many of them don't want to give up on that easily.
And in the same instance, I think if you look at older generations,
they're just way more attached to the option of having the ability to drive a car and don't increase petrol prices and stuff like that.
So I think it's just normal that every generation has different preferences and what is closest to their lifestyle at the moment.
But yes, I think it would have been easier for us if we would have seen more clear.
Directions of what which generation is open to give up or make a compromise?
Then how did you come to the conclusion that so based on the research findings from our surveys and other other studies,
that young Europeans seem to favour more governmental action than individual contributions or measures?
I'm not sure of their favourite governmental action over individual action,
especially if you ask who is primarily responsible for taking action at the individual level is very similar across different age groups.
But or we see less like a slight diversification.
So younger Europeans are more likely to say there are several different types of actors like individuals,
national government, local governments, etc, are responsible for taking action.
But the question is, what is this connected to? So we have this one big result that we like to talk about quite often,
which is that young Europeans believe that authoritarian states are better equipped than democracies to tackle the climate crisis.
So in our polling, this came up as fifty three percent of young Europeans, which is quite the finding.
But then the question is, what is this about?
And actually that is that there's been a similar study on Fridays for future activists when I went to Friday
for future protests and asked people very similar question and that the result was quite similar again.
And they also and we agree with that.
They they also think that this doesn't necessarily mean that young people favour non democracies or authoritarian states, but instead,
it is more likely to mean that young people are getting a little bit impatient with the inaction that they have seen on climate change.
Yeah, that that's probably one of the research findings that most surprised all of us in this project.
But that tentative explanation has also come up in other conversations with other authors
that this is probably more an expression of the frustration with democratic procedures.
I think it's also super important for our chapter to to be sure about that,
that we should not be disappointed by young Europeans or Europeans in general to maybe feel
that authoritarian regimes are more capable of fighting something like climate change.
But I think it should rather be a warning sign to to all our politicians and systems that we require
a bit more action to avoid people in the future becoming too disappointed by politics in general.
Because I think you can really put that onto all the chapters we have worked on,
all areas that we talked about from climate change to refugees through social policy to free movement,
that if the people get more and more disappointed, what politics can offer them as solutions and actions,
they would just feel that our systems are not equipped enough to face the problems of our time.
So I think that's really important thing that you just said,
that we are aware of that tendency and do not just see it as a sign that young Europeans might not understand a system good enough or whatever,
but rather that we need to act more and maybe quicker and become more agile and our political thinking as well.
Yes, and I'm not sure I'm also sharing my reaction here.
We've just come out are we're still coming out of a worldwide crisis and we've seen democracies taking immediate action,
bypassing the typical normal day mechanisms that we usually have because of the urgency of the situation.
So, again, I think from a young Europeans perspective,
the urgency of this crisis calls for similar action that is perfectly within the possibilities within a democracy.
So just now mentioned this kind of frustration towards democracies and before going more into the details of what the EU is doing,
I I thought to ask for a bit of your reflection on this frustration directed towards the EU.
And you mentioned that there is a more radical critique of the EU despite its effort to have a green deal,
et cetera, citing, for example, George Monbiot,
who has talked about the collusion between national governments and EU institutions and corporate interests that really hinder climate action.
I just wonder for yourselves working on this, did it make you more or less sympathetic towards that argument?
I looked a bit into what judge for me also said about this thing that especially in in the climate policy area,
he feels that national governments can hide behind what the EU is doing, what the EU institutions are doing.
And I think that is indeed a true thing.
But I think it's a thing that applies to all policy areas in Europe and just calls to this voice that whenever something is going bad,
you can also critique the EU about it, because obviously they could also do a different.
But then again, obviously, national governments could also do more that do not need to hide behind whatever the EU is doing or not doing.
So I think the general critique of this big EU thing that George Monbiot brings forward,
I think rings true to everyone who deals a bit more with the EU and its inner workings.
But I think it's also a bit too easy to say that that is the general problem of the policy area.
Yeah, it's I think it's a tricky question,
but there are certain things like having researched looked into this for this chapter that just sometimes difficult to understand,
like especially, for example, the lack of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
And then also I think the European Parliament failed to protect peatlands,
which store a significant amount of CO2, which is then released through the lands, are drained.
Like there are some specific things like these that that make you question do you a bit more than before?
Perhaps because I just from a personal standpoint, difficult to comprehend because they don't match the ambition of the green deal.
Many critics of the EU recognise how much it is already doing with regard to solving climate change,
what they are critical of is how environmental policies are pursued.
Listen to Chris Koski, the mayor of Wasilla, on how EU funds are used to address climate change.
But that needs the help from the European Union not only to the country,
but also to the cities and regions, so that we are fighting for direct access to your money.
Because what I'm afraid is that the government will use political criteria to redistribute money from from the EU funds,
and then it would be very difficult for us in the cities to confront climate change.
So we're now moving into the topic of what the EU is and is not doing,
and one finding that came across very clearly in the previous section is that most Europeans would like to see net zero carbon emissions by 20,
30, or at least by 2040. And that goal for the EU is currently set at 20 50.
Even if this is a case, is the EU doing enough to achieve this goal by then, by 2050?
So if you just look at the goal,
I think it's one of the most prominent facts to illustrate the discrepancy between what the Europeans want and what the EU is doing.
Then again, I would say as long as the EU would really achieve the 2050 goal, I think nobody would really complain.
So if they are sticking to a great pathway, follow up on every action and achieve that by 2050,
I think everyone would be happier in the end than if they would set the goal to 20 30,
which is completely impossible at the current state of affairs and what we're doing.
So from that realistic position, I think it should be fine. But then again, looking at what the EU is doing currently and what we wrote in the report,
we all kind of share the feeling that it is not enough yet to really achieve 20, 50 goals.
And also maybe that's important to mention that you also set itself the goal that by 2030
we're supposed to reduce the net greenhouse gas emissions already by fifty five percent.
So to have a half way point and at the moment it doesn't really seem that the actions that we're taking are enough,
although there's a lot of political talk around the European green deal and everything that the EU is doing.
When you really look into detailed criticisms, it seems that they could definitely do more.
Yeah, I think also the the worrying thing is that organisations that fight for climate action and have been doing so for a long time,
like Greenpeace, say it's not enough.
And as those individuals, we obviously experts on this, especially since neither of us study climate change from it, not social science perspective.
But I think that is the most worrying.
And also, for example, the European Parliament wanted to go further and then the European Commission and for example,
I think the current target for 20, 30 is fifty five percent.
And the European Parliament was aiming for 60 percent. And the Green faction in the European Parliament was aiming for sixty five percent.
Do you think that the political will towards more climate action may have shifted after all the emergency action we saw with the covid-19 crisis?
So in order to address that crisis, we saw flights being stopped all over the world.
This might have impacted at least travelling habits, I think a lot more every time I commute somewhere.
Do I really need to go there? Do I really need to go by a car?
What are your personal thoughts? I mean, having come through this crisis, I know that the chapter was written as this was happening.
Maybe I can stop because I looked again at the number that also appears in our report where we
talked about the post pandemic recovery fund that you set up to fight the effects of cold in Europe.
And they announced last year that 40 percent of that fund is supposed to only go into the green transition.
So it's about two point sixty five billion. And I was looking at the number and was feeling it quite that's quite a lot.
And if that's just going into green transition, so not finding any other effects of covid, but particularly into that area, that seems quite good.
But then I was wondering, why is it only set at 40 percent?
Does that mean that 60 percent of that money goes into recovering our economy in a dirty way?
So not in a green way? I have to admit, I haven't looked into that in more detail, but I'm just wondering whether the commitment of our politicians,
of our system, of every one of us has really shifted now to 100 percent towards climate action.
Or if we were always also reminded by that crisis that there are other areas of importance on social policy, jobs, health system,
education, digitalisation, that we feel that climate policies rather pushed to the back because now we have way more urgent stuff to do.
Although I would agree with you on obviously that on a personal level, we all changed our habits,
but I'm not 100 percent convinced that that will actually be done on political level as well.
Many of our interviewees acknowledged that the EU has taken climate change seriously,
but they believe that it is not doing enough to address it and that it has untapped potential to do so.
Nora Nordström, a researcher in Finland, shares the sentiment.
I think the biggest burning.
Of our generation or our time in climate change, and it's such a big problem that one nation can't really fight against that in an efficient way.
So I think that's really a field or a topic where you have a lot to offer.
But I don't see that you is doing enough. So I would like to see you really committing to a carbon free society by 2030.
So one of the aspects that we've mentioned just now is this feeling that many have that the EU is not doing enough.
And you raised one specific point,
which is the accusation that the EU is actually engaging in greenwashing depending on how the categories of climate action or set.
Could you just say a bit more about what these arguments are about greenwashing and how they
relate to the institutional framework of how the EU classifies degrees of climate action,
for example? Yeah, it's quite interesting. When I looked at the report again, I specifically jumped into one part that we also wrote about.
It's the European Green Delts Investment Plan, which I think in some of our interviews and also the webinar,
this criticism of greenwashing came up quite publicly, although I would reframe you a bit.
It's not that the EU engages in greenwashing activities. I think that's a bit too far taken.
But it's rather that it seems are some politicians and activists that we have interviewed have the perception
that the regulations of the EU offer too many loopholes for exactly this practise of greenwashing.
So with this European green investment plan, there is, for example, the problem that Wolfgang Minggao pointed out in one of the webinars,
because he said that the categories that are set up to finance green investments.
So what does count as a green investment itself are aiding countries in green washing their recovery plan.
So because it offers too many loopholes that allow for mismanagement of funds and decrease their impact.
And I think in this context,
it's also important what we talked about with the mayor of Warsaw because he pointed with his criticism to a potential solution, I would say,
because he says that with this green DIA's investment plan that currently allows for these loopholes and greenwashing opportunities,
the main problem is that it's organised from European level.
And he advocates for more direct investments on local level so that cities that regions that, for example, his city where he's made of,
that they get funded directly if they have great initiatives towards a green
transition so that it's more direct funding that doesn't offer this supranational
European level mismanagement because there are just too many bureaucratic loopholes that could be misused if they would be wanted to be misused.
Before we go into the many recommendations you make about what the EU should do about climate change.
I was wondering, you know, I can I can anticipate some critics of the euro sceptics or people who are critical of too much governmental intervention.
What would you say to anyone who either thinks that empowering the EU or the
EU being so in preventive and what comes to climate change or the environment
may be even more detrimental to state autonomy in the EU or that it may inhibit private initiative solutions towards protecting the environment?
To some degree, discretion reminds me of parallels to the pandemic.
And I'm personally at the moment not very fond of waiting for individuals to take their own responsible actions,
because especially in the more liberal countries or countries that like to portray themselves as especially liberal,
such as the UK and Switzerland, two countries that I happen to know quite well now, they haven't really worked that well, growth to come in.
And so I think this this connects to the impatience young Europeans and I can talk maybe in the plural sense we have,
because it's just too late to wait for private action.
Maybe would have been something to think about 30 or 40 years ago, but I don't think now is the time anymore.
Maybe specifically in the area of climate policy. I always have the perception because I have also rather liberal background, honestly,
so I have never been a fan of banning anything or not allowing people to do something.
So I also had a lot of fights when we included our what we will talk about later.
I assume the recommendation to ban the short haul flights,
because it's for me always is to waste word that obviously at the same time we're banning something we have to to improve the options.
And I say, like, honestly, we don't need to necessarily been something of the options as the alternative are way better.
But currently, for example, trains are just so bad.
Our train networks across countries are just not equipped to really handle the travel requirements and travel wishes of Europeans.
So I think what you were hinting with your question maybe is also that it doesn't take away individual responsibility or the autonomy of the states.
But I think it should just illustrate that we need all kind of action.
So we need regulations at European level. We need actions at national level to improve system, to improve offers of the state and the EU,
to then actually enhance the individual actions of people,
that they take the right options and right decisions, in our opinion, obviously the right actions.
So I think we need all kinds of activities and not just take away the responsibility of the individual of the state by European actions,
but just become more active through all approaches and methods that we have currently.
And that we interviewed Janusz Kelly, a Hungarian economist and policy expert.
He is one of many young Europeans who believe that successfully addressing climate
change is of a global challenge beyond the capabilities of national governments.
Deal with the climate change or energy efficiency programmes.
I think it's a very challenging area. We have to find the right answers.
We have to find the right common answers on European level because it's not a national level problem.
It's in Europe, it's a global problem. So we have to have to be united.
We have to unite in an opinion or in an action plan or something like that.
So before getting into some of these specific recommendations you make about what the EU should do.
There was a passage that was very thought provoking for me in which you discussed the concept of net zero coming out of accounting,
but raise a concern that net zero might not be such a perfect and flawless concept as we might imagine.
And it really depends on how you think about and measure the benefits and the costs.
So could you just expand a bit on what you see is complicated or problematic about the
concept of net zero and how it links up with some of the other things we've been discussing?
Yeah, so basically this builds on an idea about a green Greenpeace European Union, but not just them.
So you can also see it into critique of great cartoon work, for example,
when she's criticising the European climate action goals and laws and everything else they've come up with.
And so basically, it's about how carbon offsetting is not enough because carbon emissions do harm the environment,
even if you come up with one hundred forest bills, which will then deduct from that carbon emission.
So that's why it is argued that this is a form of accounting logic that you say, OK,
we admit that much, and then the only thing we have to do is have we have to deduct this movement.
And that is actually like a part of a long debate also within the EU that has played out in the past between the parliament and the commission,
because obviously offsetting is a lot easier than reducing emissions.
You've mentioned earlier railway infrastructure as something that needs a lot of
investment in order for there to be an alternative to short haul flights within the EU.
This is reflected in your recommendations. Would you like to talk a little bit about that?
It's happy to do that because I think it's one of the most important recommendations
considering the attention that the ban of short haul flights obviously gets,
because we've got the second recommendation that would not make any sense.
So currently, the main problem is there is no international cooperation in our radwaste systems.
Of course, they try in some certain bits and pieces,
but whether try to travel across more than one or two borders that are too obvious, they noticed the problems there.
So we decided that it is one of the key recommendations that that we would demand you to do, which would be short term, obviously,
that we need to enable and more easy to access online booking system,
because currently you have to book your German trains there via the German Deutsche Bon and via the Swiss.
You can book the Swiss tickets and the Austrian the Austrian tickets. But it's super difficult to to book across European ticket.
So that should and could be enabled rather easily on the short term, in our opinion.
Then obviously in the long term it would require more capital invest because the EU needs to support a large
scale expansion of our continental European railway system and then also in the next step subsidise train fares,
because obviously it needs to become cheaper in comparison to the short haul flights that are currently on offer.
So in that way, we also think it could become a new recognisable European project, because considering also the other chapters,
European movement and the movement across countries in Europe is so important for identifying with the whole European project that
we think that a common European railway system would much improve the whole idea of living and working together as Europeans.
So we think that's really a key European project that the EU should work towards to.
Yeah, I agree with that and also it actually reminds me of something we talked about before,
like the pandemic, making us feel more hopeful about things.
And I think actually thinking about train connexions maybe a little bit, because at least in Germany,
Switzerland and Austria, some train connexions have been picked up again in the past,
and not just necessarily because of the pandemic, but in the last few years we've seen especially night trains,
interestingly enough, which were closed down maybe five or 10 years ago, come up again.
So that kind of like reviving previous night train connexions and making them happen again, which is nice to see.
Maybe on a side note as well here, my brother just took a train back from here.
So we in the southern part of Switzerland, really the southern Italian part,
and he took a train back eight hours to the north to our whole place because the flights are not on offer at the moment.
So back in the past, you could travel from three or four different airports in northern Italy, regions around Milan.
And obviously there were planes like four or five a day. But currently due to the epidemic, there's only one usually, and it's super expensive.
So he voluntarily took a train ticket. So I think it's just nice to see that it all depends on demand and offer on the side.
So the system is already in SpaceX there.
We just really need to invest and make it easy for people to see it as a valuable option for everyone.
Our interviews with Europeans from different generations are essential component of the Europe Stories project.
You can explore their answers about their formative best and worst moments on our website, European Moments Dotcom.
Several of those moments mentioned throughout this episode are linked in the description.
As far as I understand, the recommendations that come at the end of the chapter followed from some of the very
strong suggestions we get from the polling results that climate action is very urgent,
important for young Europeans. There is a striking finding that.
Most Europeans, fifty eight percent, and this is in our March 2020 polling,
want the EU to be carbon neutral by 2030 and an additional wanting carbon neutrality by 2040.
But we've also discussed a number of trade offs and conditions in terms of transport infrastructure,
in terms of democracy, in terms of jobs and economic well-being.
And I'm curious for for you as a chapter authors whether the interviews or other
research findings help you to contextualise and see the nuance in the poll findings,
because the poll findings by themselves seem to suggest a very aggressive desire for carbon neutrality as soon as possible over a majority for 2030.
But there are all these other trade offs and tension. So I wonder if the other kinds of material,
the other empirical material we have helps you to see the nuances and dig a bit deeper into the trade offs and the tensions.
Yeah, I'm not even sure we need, like other studies to see this tension,
because if we look at the data that we have, yes, that's the size of our lunch there.
But it's mainly there when you ask people about by when do you want to have achieved that zero?
And then if you look at the actions, they're actually not that great. And I'm not saying I would be better.
I don't think I am. But yeah, it's always obviously harder to have these trade offs affect yourself than someone else.
So I think it's going to be an issue that we will struggle for as long as we have an issue of climate change.
So that's going to be an issue for a very long time since we all social science students,
or at least Rayonier, I think we are quite aware of results that come from polls.
So it's it's very much easier to say in a poll when you have to say yes or no towards more actions or less actions,
to say that instead of really contextualising what you're willing to give up, what are you willing to compromise for such a cost?
So I think obviously what you asked, you have to contextualise it.
And I think that's also so great from our material to consider the interviews and the self interview features as well,
the reports that I mentioned so frequently. So I think it's just really valuable to look at all the sources to get the broader understanding of
what opinions and what kind of willingness is behind the answers that we found in the polls as well.
You say a lot about banning the short haul flights, but you have many interesting solutions, specific solutions about avoiding short haul flights.
You want to speak a little bit more about that, how the how EU officials, for instance, can lead by example?
Yeah, I think I'll take that on, because as we've mentioned before, there's always some disagreements amongst even co-authors of a report as well.
Actually, how this ended up in the report is quite the coincidental story because we want to weave our work and the team together.
We wanted to ask questions that haven't necessarily been asked before and questions such as why
in favour of banning short haul flights without really defining what a short haul flight is,
have been asked in the past. And so coincidentally, I was aware of a suggestion by the Green Party in Switzerland.
And so they had suggested that you ban flights which could be replaced by a train journey of under 12 hours.
And at the beginning we thought it might be a bit of a radical question to ask,
but then we thought, OK, it hasn't been asked before, so let's just try to act.
And surprisingly, there was, I think, two thirds of support amongst our respondents for that suggestion.
And I quite like the way it is phrased because it combines this issue of train rides not being
affordable enough or not being where it should be at the moment with banning total flights.
That idea is the only ban if the infrastructure is there.
And yes, you can wait for the infrastructure to grow,
but you can also kind of force it to grow by banning short haul flights of a certain distance first.
And then if the train rides get better or to get faster and cheaper, you can potentially expand the ban.
So it's obviously quite a radical suggestion. And, you know, if you want to implement it in practise,
it actually goes quite complicated because then it gets easier to travel from Portugal to, I think, east of Germany.
As far as I'm aware, you probably can't get in on the 12 hours then it gets if you travel from certain
parts of France where you can actually travel to Poland by train and under 12 hours.
So you end up with these curious cases that they've actually become quite complicated.
If you start thinking about equality and what is fair and what isn't.
But I think it is definitely like an avenue to consider, a path to potentially take.
Because we've got a lot of people have been saying you have to improve train rides and you have to prove the train infrastructure in Europe,
and it's just taking a very long time. And so sometimes some things just need to get pushed by something else in order for them to happen.
But then in connexion to other chapters where we saw a great sense amongst young Europeans for equality and issues of social justice,
we were thinking that the same way some universities don't allow their employees to travel a certain distance by plane anymore.
I think it would make a lot of sense if this was also true for the E.U. So if at least like representatives of EU
institutions would not do that anymore because a lot of them are affluent enough to be able to afford train fares now.
Right. They might seem small on paper, but still some very strong symbolic actions I feel like are often lacking from the EU.
Such examples could be followed by more Europeans if railway alternatives to air travel were widely accessible.
Some would argue a good exotic Slovenian student in cognitive science suggests
as much to do with the climate change that they want to make better trade.
Connexions, for example,
that people won't go by plane to the countries that are actually really accessible to go by train so that they would minimise the CO2 emissions.
For both of you working on this Europe storage project,
I wonder whether you feel at this point more or less hopeful about European climate action or climate action in general.
I think one problem that at least I've come across is that it is very hard to follow everything
that you is doing on climate action because of it being a supranational institution.
It's just a very complicated web of structures.
And even once you understand most of it, and even once you have more than basic knowledge of the institutions,
it is incredibly hard, as one thought, to get information on the different debates and agreements.
So not just because of the complicated nature of the institution,
but also because of the reporting on the use of our Inish and even those news outlets that do report on the
often their articles are rather brief and you can't necessarily always find the information you're looking for.
And I think this is rather frustrating because looking at it from our perspective,
it then makes me wonder how difficult must it be for the average citizen to learn what you doing or what the EU is not doing?
I felt so similar because when you looked at this.
Wow, our ideas for the chapter, what the EU is doing or is not doing, you always feel like they're definitely not doing enough.
And it's so easy to criticise whatever we came up with.
I think it was also in the last webinar with the type of programme that we talked about green financing, thinking, OK, you should definitely do more,
and that it's such an important area to really fund also the green transition and set an example by the EU and we all said,
OK, we have to agree and put that in the report that EU is not doing enough there.
And then we looked it up and there was a green bond standard just recently agreed by the EU exactly going into that direction.
So what I just said, the problem is also that we're just not aware of what the EU is actually already doing.
But then again, returning to Loukas question about more hopeful or less hopeful, I think even considering what the EU is already doing,
I became a bit disappointed seeing that it's still not enough also to meet the demands and requirements of young Europeans, especially.
So I think that was, for me, the biggest disappointment,
seeing the discrepancy between what young Europeans want and what the EU's currently offering, especially in the climate change area, I would say.
Yeah, we seem to return to this issue constantly,
which is actually reflected in our democracy chapter about difficulty in communication and people being aware of what the EU does,
how it works, what results can be attributed to its institutions actions.
So, yeah, that's a very interesting connexion you draw with other aspects that this report reveals.
Molly Scott Cato, former member of the European Parliament for the Green Party,
emphasises the importance of democratic stability in the EU for it to effectively address climate change.
Obviously, climate change is right at the top of the agenda in terms of policy,
but I think everything else we're trying to achieve will fail unless the European Union
stabilises itself as a democratic project and stabilises the democracies within Europe.
So switching gears a little bit, because you do mention what young Europeans want from the E.U., how has your view of your generation,
our generation of young Europeans, changed while writing this report on climate or in fact,
on any I think, any other aspect of who young Europeans are at?
Just to me personally, it's become obvious that we do, you know, live in our own social, economic or academic bubble.
And that is especially the pulling out.
The thing that just shows what your lived experience might be is not necessarily what someone else's experiences is.
And this is a very obvious thing. But it's different if you see it in the polling results.
For example, if you just look at our question and how often do Europeans fly?
And in our polling, over 70 percent said they fly once a year or less.
And then you realise, for example, that again, as academics, we're just we tend to be the more mobile population.
Right. And this just does not reflect the experiences of a lot of other Europeans.
But then also politically, you surround yourself with people who are more likely to think like you and polling,
but also to show you that it's just very hard to to find common ground, especially if it comes to giving up individual freedoms and benefits.
I think for me, the most impressive effect of contributing to this research was also Azria sight seeing
the diversity that you're just not aware of as long as you stick to your little paper.
For me, that was primarily because I worked a lot with the set of interviews that we conducted and listen to all of them.
And it's so impressive to see the different realities people have in Europe.
And it's not between two young Europeans and older Europeans, but also just amongst young Europeans.
It's so important. What is your background, where you're coming from?
What were your experiences?
I think my answers to the South into you just differs so much from a young European coming somewhere very far in the east of Europe.
We're just having so many other decisive moments in their past that obviously also influenced their feelings of importance right now.
So what you should do, what do you shouldn't do? So I think that was, for me, the most impressive thing also to be reminded of.
Do you have any particular example of an interview in mind?
Honestly, I don't have a particularly interview in mind. But for me, also, having studied history and politics,
it was the most impressive thing to see the answers of people coming from former Soviet Union countries,
because for them, moments like the the Orange Revolution or in the 60s and 50s revolutions and eastern countries are so much more important.
Where I was like, yeah, that's a brief glimpse in my history book and I'm reminded of that.
But for me, that has no importance of my European understanding on what I'm shaped of and what my understanding of Europe was.
So I think that was for me sometimes, most surprisingly, when I had to ask our editors to at you moment,
something you formative as a moment that I basically didn't even know what before I was like,
OK, yeah, that really illustrates the difference that we are coming up with.
But that was super impressive. To learn more about the different perceptions of your.
Our guest today will read this and Victoria Hunza, a huge thanks to our podcast editor,
Billy Kragen, our research manager, Luisa Miller, and our report Ed Professor Timothy Garton Ash.
We're also grateful to our founders, the Swedish Nobel Foundation, the tight system and the system.
Mercato for making the Europe Stories Project podcast, a special thank you to Ellen.
We've sent Lilly striker Maev Moynihan,
Sophie Verité and Victoria Hansell for contributing to the podcast production music by Unicorn Heads and Katzir.
Finally, thank you to the whole Europe Stories Project Team. I'm your host and Martins.
I'm your host. Lucasta, thank you for listening today. Join us for the next episode of the Europe Stories podcast and until then,
you can find out more about our research project at European Moments Dotcom.