Enigin Update - Energy Efficiency Actions Can Help Reduce Unemployment and Debt
EUROPEAN Union member states who are searching for strategies to fight record-high unemployment and recessionary pressures should look at supporting investments in energy efficiency.
So said EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard yesterday (Tuesday), and she urged action at a special crisis summit on Monday, when EU leaders pledged 'to create new jobs, including in the 'green economy,'' and committed themselves to explore 'the potential of green growth' at their meeting next month.
Hedegaard entreated the summit attendees to adopt draft proposals to introduce binding energy efficiency targets across Europe.
“When you want to adjust our economies and make them more resilient, can anyone come up with a better proposal than to address energy efficiency?" she asked.
"We must bring sustainable development from the margins of the economy to the mainstream of the global economic debate. It sounds easy, maybe even logical, but everybody knows it's a very different kind of thinking."
Upgrading buildings across Europe to become more energy efficient would provide thousands of jobs, just improving insulation would create at least half a million jobs up to 2020, Hedegaard claimed, and help with the economic crisis across the bloc.
“Last year Europe imported oil for €315 billion ($413 billion dollars). It's almost the size of the Greek debt, and it went up 40 percent compared to the previous year,” Hedegaard said.
“How do we want to spend our money, do we want to continue pouring it into Saudi Arabia and elsewhere or do we want to spend it more on our own territory?” she asked.
For both the public and private sectors across Europe, an ideal solution is to turn to their nation's Enigin Distributors - who can implement energy efficiency programmes and solutions from Enigin.
Substantial savings are made using Enigin plc's EnergyMaps programmes, savings in energy demand, energy costs and CO2 emissions - meeting whatever targets are set by government while greatly helping budgets, the bottom line and employment.
Achieving agreement for binding energy efficiency targets is a key priority for the new Danish EU presidency, and is close to Hedegaard’s heart as a former Danish Climate and Energy Minister.
Picture of Connie Hedegaard from the European Commission.
