No new targets, gas is in, jobs and growth are key: the EU is designing a new climate and energy strategy for the coming decades that must reflect a new EU identity post-Brexit – and must drive economic opportunity to ensure it is “populism-proof”.
Brussels is usually deserted in summer. The institutions shut down and everyone takes a break. This year, there are two big energy projects that will keep some people busy however.
First, the Austrian EU Presidency, which took over from Bulgaria on 1 July, will lead technical talks on a new electricity market design for Europe. This is part of the EU’s Clean Energy Package. With new laws on renewables, energy efficiency and governanceconcluded last month, market design is the Package’s last outstanding file. Austria wants to wrap it – and therefore the EU’s climate and energy framework fror 2030 – up by the end of the year.
It organised a first “trilogue” or negotiating session between Member States, the European Parliament and the European Commission on 27 June. This was basically a “meet and greet” session. Work will now get underway at a technical level over the summer ahead of a second trilogue scheduled for 11 September.
The second big topic this summer is a new EU climate and energy strategy for 2050. European heads of state and government called for it by next spring; the European Commission aims to deliver it by November. It is holding a big two-day stakeholder conference on it in Brussels on 10-11 July – in a room big enough for 1000 people, an official said (see programme).
Next week, the Commission will launch a 3-month public consultation on the strategy, ensuring that stakeholders as well as officials are kept busy over the summer months… Read the rest of this article on Energy Post Weekly
Mike Parr says
There is one key subject that the institutions do not tend to discuss: money. Where does the finance for the energy change come from and how much is needed. On these two subjects there is dead silence (The Silence of the Lambs?) – or rather a touching faith in “markets” – yeah – markets will deliver.
The utter & total inadequacy of the EU approach is shown by the programme for the meeting addressing a “Strategy for Lonf Term Emission”. Finance has one section & the people talking are, frankly – a joke.
I have written a paper on the subject of the EU, the energy change and finance. To meet 2050 ambitions the EU will need to spend at least Euro10 trillion on energy efficiency measures, renewables, networks to connected and circular economy related actions.
I guarantee that at no point in today’s proceedings will either the numbers needed to finance the change be discussed, nor will the question be even posed: who has the resources to fund a programme that will need around Euro500 billion per year for at least 20 years.
If Sonja reads this – by some chance – and is attending the conf’ perhaps she would care to ask these questions. You can have all the strategies you want – if you do not have the money to fund the tactics that flow from the strategy – then what you have is hot air.
Oh & in answer to the question: so who funds: simple the organisation with literally limitless amounts of money: the European Central Bank. (my final statement – “limitless amounts of money” is true and proveable: central banks by definition can never run out of money – Draghi publically said that, Ditto Greenspan on the other side of the Atlantic wrt the Fed.).
Bas Gresnigt says
If all govt money now spent on nuclear research & development, is redirected towards improvements on wind, geothermal, solar and PtG-S-GtP (Fuel Cells) then
the transition to 100% renewable will deliver within 20 years a much cheaper energy supply then we will have if we continue with fossil and nuclear!
Kirsi Jansa says
Here’s a US perspective on the key subject – money. “Stiglitz, a Columbia University economics professor and former World Bank chief economist, concludes that increasing global warming will have huge costs on society and that a fossil fuel-based system “is causing imminent, significant, and irreparable harm to the Youth Plaintiffs and Affected Children more generally.” He explains in a footnote that his analysis also examines impacts on “as-yet-unborn youth, the so-called future generations.”
“There is a point at which, once this harm occurs, it cannot be undone at any reasonable cost or in any reasonable period of time,” Stiglitz writes. “Based on the best available science, our country is close to approaching that point.”
But, he says, acting on climate change now—by imposing a carbon tax and cutting fossil fuel subsidies, among other steps—is still manageable and would have net-negative costs. He argues that if the government were to pursue clean energy sources and energy-smart technologies, “the net benefits of a policy change outweigh the net costs of such a policy change.”
“Defendants must act with all deliberate speed and immediately cease the subsidization of fossil fuels and any new fossil fuel projects, and implement policies to rapidly transition the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels,” Stiglitz writes. “This urgent action is not only feasible, the relief requested will benefit the economy.” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072018/joseph-stiglitz-kids-climate-change-lawsuit-global-warming-costs-economic-impact