Enigin Update - Europe's "Roadmap" for more Energy Savings
TO LIMIT spiralling energy costs and achieve its own target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the European Commission said yesterday that the EU must invest heavily in energy efficiency.
This opinion came from the unveiling of the Commission’s 'roadmap for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050'. The plan shows that much, if not all, of the extra investment would be recovered from savings on oil imports.
The recent and ongoing unrest across the Middle East and North Africa has sent oil prices ever higher, hitting shares in European companies.
Connie Hedegaard, the EU's commissioner for climate action commented: "As oil prices keep rising, Europe is paying more every year for its energy bill and becoming more vulnerable to price shocks. So starting the transition now will pay off."
The Commission's report revealed that Europe needs to invest an extra 1.5 percent of its economic output each year to rein in energy costs.
The Commission’s roadmap also states that meeting energy efficiency goals will help the EU beat the existing targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the end of this decade.
The EU has a long-term goal to slash emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and to reduce greenhouse gases by a fifth by 2020, but the EU could cut greenhouse gases by 25 percent by the end of the decade, if it met the current energy efficiency and renewable energy targets by 2020, the Commission revealed.
Business and green groups criticised the notion of beating the 2020 goal for going ”too far” and “not far enough” by each group respectively, opinions that will likely complicate the plan's adoption by member states in the coming months.
The EU has said it would move to a more ambitious 30 percent emissions cut, but like all other blocs and countries with the proviso: if other countries also offered more ambitious action in the currently deadlocked UN climate talks.
As we have reported here over the last few months, the EU has a non-binding target to improve energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2020, so the Commission published a separate report yesterday detailing how to meet the goal.
The Commission reported that one way to boost energy efficiency would be by cutting the quota of emissions permits to industry in Europe's carbon market, the emissions trading scheme (ETS), hence applying further pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Europe's collection of Enigin Distributors are busy supplying Enigin Plc's cutting edge energy saving solutions to both the public and private sector, enabling organisations to reduce emissions and energy use through taking control of their energy demand and costs.
Picture by openDemocracy
