EC’s 2030 energy green paper lacks ambition
The Commission's proposal for a “Green Paper – A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies”, which will be in public consultation until July, received a mixed reception, with some MEPs saying that it lacks ambition.
Electricity industries, such as the associations Eurogas and Eurelectric, insist that the paper lacks specific targets and coherent measures. Renewable energy associations, such as wind EWEA and solar EPIA, call for targets on renewables. They also note that energy efficiency is almost absent from the paper. Several MEPs also raised concerns, whereas NGOs, such as WWF and Greenpeace called for clear and binding targets.
“The history of EU policy is littered with the corpses of voluntary targets that died of neglect. ......
Remarkably, this paper overlooks what we’ve learned about the reason these policies exist: the ever-increasing evidence of the rapidity of climate change”, says Anderson. ‘Unless we avert dangerous global warming, all other goals – economic, social, and environmental – will fail. Competitiveness, social welfare and climate protection are not tradeoffs: not only can we deliver them all, we must”, stated Jason Anderson, Head of Climate and Policy at WWF’s European Policy Office.
Sources: WWF EPO, TheParliament.com, Europolitics.