"I will not be a caretaker. It simply wouldn't do justice to the scale, to the magnitude of our challenge. I will be driven by facts, by numbers, by science." The words of Wopke Hoekstra during his long grilling in the EU Parliament last Monday.

Fighting talk from the amateur kickboxer as Europe's lawmakers scrutinized his bid to be Europe's next climate chief. He vowed to make further promises to strengthen green measures and was finally approved in the post on Thursday.

The 48-year-old former Dutch minister, also an ice skater, will need all his guile and battling qualities to persuade skeptical European MPs that a former Shell employee should be EU climate commissioner.

Hoekstra hails from the centre-right European People's Party political group, which has sought to block some recent EU environment laws and is wary of measures that could impose red tape on industry or costs on consumers. But to get business done in Brussels and cut CO2 emissions in the world's third biggest economy, he will need to garner support, not least from Green and left-leaning lawmakers.

A petition attracted tens of thousands of signatures criticizing the appointment of a "fossil fuel manager" given his background in the oil industry. There are clearly many who won't be happy with his new role.

He arrives at a time when climate action is facing political pushback in Europe as living costs surge and tensions mount between countries like the U.S. and China over manufacturing green tech, and as countries face record-breaking floods, drought and wildfires. Divisions amongst the EU-27 over green policies are widening.

The EU already has among the most ambitious emissions-cutting plans of any major economy, and has signed into law the main measures it says are needed to cut CO2 this decade - including higher CO2 costs for polluting industries and binding targets to expand renewable energy.

Hoekstra won't be able to change those laws and will hold his role only until after EU Parliament elections in June. Nonetheless, he has set his sights on key changes. He told lawmakers he would push for the EU to slash net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90 percent by 2040, a move backed by climate scientists, but which some industries have warned is unrealistic.

Pressed further, he said he would adopt a tough stance in EU climate diplomacy, vowing to push for a global deal to phase out all fossil fuels at the United Nations' COP28 summit in November.

That would put Europe at odds with oil-and-gas-producing nations that want to use technologies to "abate" - meaning capture - the emissions from burning fossil fuels, rather than directly reduce use of the fuels.

Hoekstra began his career with a three-year spell in commercial roles at Shell in Berlin and Hamburg, before working for a decade at consultancy McKinsey. He said he did not work on behalf of oil firms during this time and lambasted companies he said had sought to ignore the evidence on their contribution to climate change.

"I find it truly unethical," he said, without naming specific companies. Between 2011 and 2017, Hoekstra served as a senator in the Dutch upper house of parliament, while staying on as a partner at McKinsey, before being appointed finance minister by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Much of that term was dominated by the fallout from COVID, during which Hoekstra oversaw a multi-billion euro bailout of Dutch airline KLM - while also pushing, so far unsuccessfully, for Europe-wide green taxes on flights.

"Looking at your CV until now, you've not really been a climate champion. And I think that's putting it mildly looking at your Shell history, McKinsey, Minister of Finance where you gave money to KLM, " Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout told Hoekstra during his hearing.

Most recently, he served as foreign minister from January 2022 to September 2023.

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Stamina is unlikely to be a problem. He told the Elsevier Weekblad weekly that he enjoyed long hard runs, swimming, and skating in the winter. "I have a lot of energy that has to go somewhere. Until recently I exercised five to six times a week, but that is no longer possible. But two or three times is really the minimum," he said.

He found himself on thin ice, however, when he posted a picture of himself skating with multiple Olympic champion Sven Kramer, breaking COVID lockdown rules.

A law and history graduate of the University of Leiden, Hoekstra also studied in Rome, Singapore and Fontainebleau in France. He is also fluent in German. He was quick out of the blocks within the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal, becoming the youngest from his party to enter the parliament, at the age of 35, before rising to become finance and then foreign minister.

According to Jaap Jansen, Dutch political journalist, criticism of Hoekstra over his climate credentials is "exaggerated." He added: "Wopke Hoekstra has been minister of finance and minister of foreign affairs and climate has been one of the biggest political topics here in the Netherlands, if not the biggest.”

On getting the formal approval, German EPP lawmaker Peter Liese said: "Hoekstra has the qualification most needed right now - diplomacy. We cannot save the climate alone; other major economies must also lend their support."

It would seem Hoekstra is up for the fight. Whether other Europeans are in his corner will be another issue.

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