For a long time the European Union has been leading against climate change. Part of this leadership was its emission trading scheme (ETS), a cap and trade scheme that was designed to cut industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
As I noted back in 2009, the emissions trading
Bloomberg news reports that European Union carbon permits dropped to their second-lowest close ever, after the bloc canceled an auction of permits for the first time as bids failed to reach a secret reserve price.
The sale was called off because the price would have cleared “significantly” below the prevailing
According to the European statistics agency, Eurostat, in the 27 members of the European Union, 40% of treated municipal waste was recycled or composted in 2011, up from 27% in 2001. While these are good news, let’s have a look at the official statistics.
According to a brand new study carried out by consultancy Ecofys and commissioned by the WWF, the European Union can halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
We have seen time and again that the European Union has been a leader in the fight against climate change when it unveiled its now famous 20-20-20 by 20 strategy. We also have seen that the EU could go further and that 30 percent cuts are achievable by 2020 as its Emissions keep decreasing.
What the EU currently lacks is a vision for 2020 and a plan for further cuts afterwards. There is indeed nothing official on the much needed energy transition to be done at a European level.
Now the WWF and Ecofys demonstrates that – with the right incentives and policies – by 2030 the 27 members of the EU could get 40 percent of its energy from renewables and cut their energy use by 38 percent (compared to a business as usual projection).
The report is a reminder that achieving 100 percent renewables across the economy by 2050 is absolutely feasible.
By 2030, Ecofys projects that 65 percent of the Union’s electricity, 35 percent of its heat and 29 percent of its fuels could be powered by renewables.
Energy efficiency, as you can imagine, would play an important role in this endeavor. Here is an overview of what could be done.
Ecofys breaks European energy savings by economic sector, with industry consuming 31% less energy, buildings making a 26% saving, and transport energy consumption falling by 11%, all by 2030.
The methods involved in the reductions would change from sector to sector. Transport emissions would be cut by fuel economy measures, improved air traffic management, and greater vehicle electrification and use of hybrids.
In industry, a 60 to 70 percent reduction in the intensity levels on 2000 levels would be achieved through increased recycling, stringent and ongoing ‘best available technology’ guidelines and ambitious plant refurbishments.
By contrast, with buildings, a 2.5 percent annual retrofit is proposed, along with increased heat recovery, insulation and ventilation systems, heat pumps, solar thermal systems and local renewable solutions where possible.
Let’s hope the European Union will take advantage of this report and many others to provide an ambitious energy and climate project for 2030 and beyond.
According to a new study presented by the Renovate Europe Campaign, weatherizing European buildings in an important way could boost local GDP by up to 291 billion Euros ($370 billion) by 2017.
Furthermore, gross annual investments of €41 to €78 billion per year in the EU could bring ongoing annual returns of €104 to €175 billion.
As the economy is tumbling across the continent, these investments represent very profitable possibilities.
With enough ambitions, the European Union could slash its greenhouse gases emissions and fossil fuels consumption significantly and create no less than two million jobs in the process.
Ultimately, deep renovations of European buildings would slash the Union’s oil consumption by up to the equivalent of four billion barrels of foreign oil per year (slightly less than 11 million barrels equivalent per day).
The report shows that for each billion euro invested by governments in renovations can return up to five billion for public finances.
During the conference presenting the report, Günther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Energy said “Energy efficiency is, for the European Union, the most direct and cost-effective way to achieve our strategic goals”.
The European Union has indeed outlined a goal of slashing its greenhouse gases emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 1990) and to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent as well.
Recently, the European Parliament has shown it is willing to go even further with up to 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2020.
Achieving such cuts would be tricky and would require drastic changes in rent regulation to allow landlords and tenants to share the gains from energy efficient renovations.
I have been advocating housing insulation as a great way to slash greenhouse gases emissions and energy consumption since the writing my Master’s thesis on the very subject back to 2005/06.
This new report brings further arguments to the ones believing that not only Europe can be more energy efficient but it has to do so, to save money, to create jobs… in other words : to get out of its current predicament.
The European Union has been committed for years to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 1990).
As we have seen in a recent article, reaching such targets is very plausible and wouldn’t need much additional effort from the 15 historic members nor the enlarged 27 countries Union.
China has become the world’s largest producer of solar panels, and the European Union has become the largest consumer of solar panels. Due to the economic climate within Europe, it is natural for them to bolster their own solar industry in the interest of keeping and adding employment and growth. However, China which is Europe’s largest supplier has been accusing
Here is some really good news coming from the European Union. From the EU environmental agency – EEA, located in Copenhagen – greenhouse gases emissions from the 15 first Member States decreased by 3.5 % between 2010 and 2011. The EU-15 emissions are now 14.1 % below the base-year level under the Kyoto Protocol.
The German government’s decision to phase out all of the nation’s nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima disaster has led to an increase in coal-burning within Europe’s largest economy.
Coal consumption in Germany has grown by 4.9 percent since Chancellor Angela Merkel announced
The European Union has introduced strict new auto emissions standards that officials say would cut carbon dioxide emissions by a third by 2020. The new standard, which must be approved by all member states and the European Parliament, would require that new passenger cars emit no more than 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven,
According to the European statistical office Eurostat, the share of renewable energy sources in the gross final energy consumption in the 27 countries of the EuroPean Union has increased to 12.4 percent in 2010, compared to 11.7 percent in 2009.
Even if the European Union is due to have 20 percent of its total energy consumption coming from renewable energies by 2020, there are many dissimilarities among countries and their respective goals.
Indeed, while countries like Sweden, Latvia or Finland have 47.9%, 32.6% and 32.2% of their total energy consumption coming from renewables (respectively), other countries like the Netherlands, the United Kingdom or Luxembourg see their share of renewables below four percent (with 3.8 %, 3.2 % and 2.8 % respectively).
It is interesting to note that between 2006 and 2010 all countries have seen their share of solar, wind, and so on increase.
The largest increases were recorded in Estonia (from 16.1% to 24.3%), Romania (from 17.1% to 23.4%), Denmark (from 16.5% to 22.2%), Sweden (from 42.7% to 47.9%) and Spain (from 9.0% to 13.8%).
Earlier this month I was stating here that some EU countries could pay back their debts with renewables. Such a simple plan could literally add gigawatts of capacity to the grids of Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.
The other benefit of this would that the European Union could achieve its not-so-ambitious goals more easily. Indeed, a continuation of this slow trend wouldn’t allow the EU to reach a share of a fifth of renewables by 2020…
What if the European Union solved the triple crisis – economy, energy, environment – by solving the financial one? Alice Stollmeyer sent me last week a link of project to do just that.
Some European nations – Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal – are owing more and more money to the European Central Bank and other debtors. What if
According to a recent study carried out by Euroheat & Power (EHP), the international association of district heating and cooling, the value of energy wasted each year in the European Union amounts to a whopping 1.000 euros per citizen. This amounts to up to 500 billion euros per year, or 638 billion USD.
We have seen time and again that the European Union should push for a more aggressive policy on climate and energy. It is highly feasible and we have seen that the current Danish presidency would be the perfect moment to do so.