I want to ask both, what worries you and what excites you about the space we're in now compared to 10 years ago?

so what worries me um is the same things that worried me when i started studying this issue when i was in yeah probably 16 17 years old or something like that i remember Reading, I think it was Al Gore's first book, one of the first ones I read, Earth, Other Balance, that terrified me.

But at that time, there was still some discussion.

Is this real? Is it not? Is it man-made? How bad is it? But then, as years have gone by, the science has just become more and more conclusive.

Really, if anything, probably it's worse than we think now.

It's definitely not better than what we think.

And every time the IPCC, United Nations Climate Panel, they put out their reports, really it's a sobering read because it shows us that we are on a trajectory to more than temperature increase of 1.5 which is what we've been fighting to stay below that that will no longer be possible maybe even two and if we get on the other side of two then self-enhancing effects will set in and then who knows if we can even do something anymore so i am very worried about this On the other hand, there are also a lot of things that are going in the right direction.

Yeah, I know you like it.

... and other vacation-type rentals, what does this act allow my city to do that it could not do before?

Yeah.

So we have a situation where many of these platforms that offer short-term rentals are suing cities and member states if they try to impose measures, and we want to give the legal basis so that it is clear that member states can indeed act.

And the way we do it is that we say that if you have a, a stressed housing area, is, is the terminology.

This means an area where indeed prices have gone up and the ratio between the rent and how much you have in income has reached a level that's unacceptable, which unfortunately is many, many cities across Europe.

Then you can impose measures.

Like for instance, saying there's only a number of nights that you can rent out your, your house, uh, as a short-term rental, or that in a certain area there's only a limited number of residents that can be short-term rental, or measures in that nature that will make it possible for cities and local communities to, to address what has become a real problem many places.

What are the other top hits that we should look for in this proposal?

We can handle the summer.

Well, first of all, uh, we should never be in a situation of panic.

I would say panic is not a good place to be.

But we are in a very serious situation, and, uh, I'm not telling, uh, people or companies or businesses or decision-makers not to be worried.

There is unfortunately reason to be worried.

But we can act, and we will act.

One of the things that, uh, I am arguing, that we in the Commission are arguing, and, and that Fatih Birol is, is, uh, supporting is we really need to do whatever we can to electrify our economies as fast as we can.

... maybe let's start from the question of why you think the European public is not convinced that our policy is delivering cheap energy.

So first of all, I think probably we need to acknowledge also that there's big differences between countries here.

And I think the situation, I'm not an expert in British politics, but I think it's probably a little bit different here than in many European countries.

I think if you go to Spain, I don't think you'll have a problem selling the point that renewables are, are cheaper because they see that with their own eyes.

They were a country very, very hard hit in '22 because they were dependent on gas.

Now they've really managed to transition away and primarily, uh, renewables now, and that has lowered their bills significantly.

And if you go to Italy, you'll see the opposite.

... who is so far from your agenda?

What can the commission do?

Well, in a way, it's similar.

It's similar because people are struggling to pay their bills.

But if we dive into an analysis of what is actually happening, it's quite different.

One of the reasons it's different is that we are better situated now to dealing with the crisis.

In '22, we were heavily dependent on gas from Russia.

Today, that dependency is, of course, of a different nature.

Might Greenland have changed? Could this be the trigger for it to come and join the European Union, where at least it has some degree of security and safety in numbers?

LNG.So Commissioner, do you see a reason to try to step in and stave off some of the increases in price, or do you think that this will right-size itself because ultimately the EU isn't as dependent on, uh, Iran and, and sort of some of the regional supplies?

So I, I, I saw earlier that you compared the, this crisis to, uh, the crisis in '22 when Russia, uh, started its full-scale invasion, uh, in, in Ukraine, and I understand why, because this is the worst crisis we've had since.

But it's also important to say that it, it, we are, we are not close to the level of, of crisis that we have in '22.

The prices are higher, yes, but not close to as high as they were there.

So that's number one.

Number two, we are also much better situated to dealing with these price increases.

We have a more diversified, uh, energy system, meaning that for instance on gas, we get the gas from more different sources.

Commissioner, have you had any conversations, uh, with, uh, Chris Wright over in the United States about potentially increasing liquified natural gas exports to Europe in order to stave off any output from Qatar that is interrupted?