President Biden’s climate plan is ambitious, but achievable, many experts believe. On April 22, Earth Day, Biden announced a national goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by up to 52% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.

Biden has also set goals of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector by 2035 and in the overall economy by 2050. Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment describes five different scenarios for reaching these goals

Scenario 1: High Electrification

The EU had 224,538 public charging points in 2020. 76% of all charging points are located in 4 countries (Netherlands, Germany, France, and UK). The four top selling EV markets in the EU represent 76% of public charging infrastructure but also concentrate 75% of the EVs, showing that both EV rollout and infrastructure deployment is happening in parallel. Since these countries represent such a large share of EU’s GDP and car sales, it is natural for these countries to be the starting point of new technology adoption.

Past revolving-door scandals have over the years inspired pledges for more institutional accountability. Current rules require recent Commissioners to seek approval from the European Commission for new roles.

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As of April 1, a new Agency, the European Health and Digital Agency (HADEA) has taken up its role as the new body in charge of the financial management of key EU programmes. Among these are the newly adopted EU4Health programme (€5,1 billion), Horizon Europe: Pillar II, Cluster 1: Health: (€5,4 billion), and the Food safety side of Single Market Programme (€1,3 billion).

COVID 19 has led to a significant surge in health sector lobbying activity, especially within the pharmaceutical industry. Four segments—pharmaceutical , hospital , health insurance , and professional services accounted for 70.7% of the lobbying expenditures in the health sector. For COVID-19 lobbying, these segments accounted for 64.2% (26.4% for pharmaceutical, 13.4% for hospitals, 12.0% for health insurance and 12.4% for professional services. Across all segments of health sector lobbying, the biggest lobbying increases came from the pharmaceutical industry.