By Martin Banks - 9th February 2009
Targets and legislation will remain just a frame without a picture
Mechtild Rothe
EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs has admitted that the financial crisis makes implementation of the climate and energy package “more difficult”.
Speaking at the launch of the EU’s third sustainable energy week (EUSEW) on Monday, he also said that Europe was “uniquely placed” to withstand the impact of the credit crunch.
His fears about the possible impact of the global recession on efforts to combat climate change was a message echoed by other keynote speakers at the opening conference of EUSEW, marked with events in Brussels and across the EU.
The event comes against a backdrop of efforts to tackle global warming. The EU has set a target of cutting Co2 emissions by 20 per cent and increasing both energy efficiency and the share of renewables in the energy mix by 20 per cent, each by the year 2020.
As part of a package approved by member states last December, the EU will scale up its emissions reduction to 30 per cent on condition that others in the industrialised world take on comparable commitments.
Piebalgs said, “The EU is clearly at the start of a long, difficult, but tremendously exciting process.
“We have a unique opportunity. Although, it is true, the increasingly difficult global economic outlook makes implementation of the 20-20-20 initiative more difficult, they are truly vital.”
He said that over the last four years the EU had “begun the process” of moving towards a sustainable, secure and competitive energy future.
“Indeed, it has undergone an energy revolution,” Piebalgs told the conference.
He reminded participants that the “push to renewable energy” in Europe has created over 300,000 jobs. The renewable energy industry also has an annual turnover of more than €40bn.
“If we manage to maintain this momentum we can maintain our position has a world leader in this area,” the commissioner said.
Speaking on the same panel, Socialist MEP Mechtild Rothe, a member of parliament’s energy committee, also voiced concerns about the impact of the recession in meeting the 20-20-20 goals.
She said, “Targets and legislation will remain just a frame without a picture as long as they are not filled with life, as long as there are no concrete national and regional measures and as long as there is no concrete action on the ground.”
This, she said, is especially the case “in these times of an international financial crisis and falling prices for fossil fuels” when “some try to escape from their 2020 commitments and put climate and energy action at the end of their political agenda.”
Rothe said the financial crisis has produced one important lesson. “Anyone who is constantly consuming more natural resources than one is able to renew is guiding oneself into a disaster, on the financial markets as well as in terms of energy supply and climate change,” she added.
The MEP said she was “convinced” that the current crisis in the financial markets had “created a historic opportunity” to reform Europe’s energy system.
She added, “Europe can turn this crisis into an opportunity for sustainable growth and jobs.”
Arthouros Zervos, president of the European Renewable Energy Council, which is co-hosting this week’s events with the commission, urged member states to stick to the EU’s energy reduction targets.
He said, “It is crucial member states provide clear and committed action plans on how they are going to meet the 2020 targets.”
Another keynote speaker, EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, said, “The [energy] package will give a shot in the arm to the EU economy, to jobs and to innovation.”
He said that with the climate and energy package the EU had put itself in the “vanguard” of the low-carbon energy “revolution”.
Sustainable energy week, billed as the “world’s most important” event of its kind, includes 150 different events and aims to focus attention on Europe’s future energy needs.
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