A few short months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, announced an ambitious initiative to tackle climate change that would transform every sector of the economy. The so-called Green Deal aims to cut Europe’s emissions 55% in the next decade, putting the bloc on course to eliminate emissions entirely by 2050. Frans Timmermans, an executive vice president of the Commission, has been tasked with overseeing the sweeping transformation.