Estonia's first female Prime Minister has vowed to make tackling climate change a top priority for her new administration.
Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has stated that in order to tackle the climate emergency, Estonia will stop producing shale oil by the year 2035 and make the country entirely carbon-neutral by 2050. Carbon-neutrality is when a country eliminates the same amount of carbon as what it produces in any given year. Carbon entering the Earth's atmosphere is one of the key drivers of global warming.
"Our goal is to play an active role in, for example, resolving the COVID-19 crisis, as well as cooperating in the fight against climate change, and also in leading the digital development and improving the European internal market. We need to take care that the timeline for the transition would be realistic and affordable for all, and also ensure equal opportunities for our businesses trading on the global market."
The tackling of carbon-emissions in Estonia is deeply important. As of 2018, Estonia was the second-highest per-capita emitter of carbon emissions in Europe, surpassed only by Poland, meaning that completing the goals that Kallas has laid out will be no easy task and may involve significant sacrifices.
Kallas has also vowed to govern in a pro-European manner, following a progressive and open agenda. This is in stark contrast to the previous government, which was made up of a right-wing coalition that eventually collapsed due to a corruption scandal.
"My government will be very pro-European, especially in supporting European values such as the rule of law. We will also have a very clear change in policies when it comes to issues like climate policy."
The election of the 43-year-old in January means that Estonia is one of the few countries in the world where women hold both the position of the Prime minister and that of Head of State President Kersti Kaljulaid took office in 2016.
Estonia is not the only country in Europe making strides towards tackling climate change. This week, Denmark announced that it was building an artificial island off the country's coast in order to construct Europe's largest wind-power plant at a cost of $25 billion. At a size of 120,000 sq metres, roughly the size of 18 soccer pitches, it will generate enough clean energy to power 3 million homes sustainably. That's well over half of the entire Danish population. However, Denmark's largest-ever construction project is likely to not be completed until the early 2030s, meaning that it will not help in meeting Denmark's 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from their 1990 level.
[h/t: Global Citizen]
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