Europe
Meta threatens to go out of business + Carbon capture and storage + Supply chains in the Chips Act
Dear reader,
A clear statement directly from the US president: In the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, "there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2", Joe Biden said. "We will bring an end to it." Standing next to him at the time was Olaf Scholz. The German chancellor, often criticized these days for lack of clarity, at least said one clear sentence: "We will act in complete agreement on the sanctions." That can hardly be interpreted any other way: Germany will support a shutdown of Nord Stream 2 if push comes to shove. But Scholz does not want to say it as clearly as Biden.
An end to Meta-services in Europe – this allegedly would not phase Robert Habeck. The Economy and Climate Minister has been living happily without Facebook (and Twitter) for four years, as he said yesterday during his visit to Paris. At the moment, no one believes that the company will make good on its threat and shut down its services like Facebook, Instagram, and others in Europe. The background to this is a decision by the Irish data protection supervisory authority on the transfer of personal data to the USA. The main addressees of the threat may not be in Europe, as Falk Steiner reports, but in the tech giant's home country.
By mid-century, the European Union aims to become climate neutral. But even after 2050, there will be unavoidable residual emissions that will have to be offset elsewhere to achieve the net-zero target. Most experts agree that the natural sink capacity of forests or wetlands will not be sufficient to achieve this. Accordingly, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the technical separation and storage of CO2, is becoming increasingly important. The EU Commission intends to present a corresponding legal framework by the end of the year. But the technology remains controversial, as Timo Landenberger knows.
