Europe Takes Steps To Shake Up Environmental Policy-Making

The New York Times reports that a number of positions in European environmental policy-making are changing hands. The European Commission in Brussels just created a position for climate action with the responsibility of ensuring environmental issues' place in the commission's agenda. President Jose Barroso announced Friday that Connie Hedegaard would be the first to fill this position. Ms. Hedegaard had previously worked in the Danish government as the climate and energy minister. Her past experience more than qualifies her for her new role and it is hopeful that all of her past experience will bring environmental change to the forefront of the European Commission's agenda.

Mr. Barroso also named Günther Oettinger, the current minister-president of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, to replace Andris Piebalgs as the European Union’s commissioner for energy. Mr. Piebalgs is now in charge of overseas development.

The European Union has done similarly, changing their environmental commissioner as well. After five years of service Stavros Dimas will be replaced despite widespread admiration for him throughout the environmental community. Janez Potocnik, a former minister for European affairs for Slovenia and currently the European Union commissioner for research, will replace him. Potocnik wrote on his website that he aims at protecting the environment, halting the loss of biodiversity, and maintaining the high quality of life.

This is refreshing to see. Change is being made in a positive way. Those at the top of the European policy-making ladder made educated decisions and hired new blood with the past experience to justify the job change. After Bloomberg's decision to hire the inexperienced Holloway as environmental commission just because of his connections to the Bloomberg campaign and Congress's slow response to President Obama's call for action, it is nice to see that there are people in charge who actually want to change the planet for the better. Even if these are just three position changes within the greater scheme of European politics, it seems as though they could actually be beneficial for the environment.

While those in charge of European decision making could have given these jobs to their close friends and business affiliates as is custom in America, they handed down these influential positions to educated, qualified individuals who have proven with their past work that they aim to protect the environment. It would seem that Europe has a much better grasp on environmental policy change than America does, but that is just my opinion. While American government seems to continually get lost in party politics and financial affiliations, Europe just gets to business and gets work done. Perhaps I should quit my complaining and move to Europe.