The College of Commissioners is meeting today for an Orientation Debate to discuss the post-2020 Climate and Energy Package. The key question will be whether the EU should set only a greenhouse gas emission target for 2030, or whether this should be accompanied by targets for energy efficiency and renewable energy. In a letter to Council President Van Rompuy, the Energy Efficiency Industrial Forum strongly argues in favour of a binding 2030 energy efficiency target based on cost-effective sectoral saving potentials.

Oliver Loebel, Secretary General of PU Europe stated, “Limiting Europe’s climate and energy policy to greenhouse gas emissions only could jeopardise economic recovery, as relocating production outside the EU would appear to be a good thing. On the other hand, realising Europe’s energy savings potential should increase annual GDP growth by 1 %, save 1.5 billion tons of CO2 emissions a year, create or sustain up to 1.5 million jobs annually and reduce the current energy import bill of €573 billion by up to 40 %. Energy efficiency hence becomes the perfect link between Europe’s climate and growth agendas.”

The energy efficiency target should be the result of a bottom-up approach using the cost-effective saving potentials of the most relevant sectors including buildings, transport, industry and energy supply. The procedure may appear complex, but ensures realistic scenarios, offers a long-term vision to the sectors concerned and allows a clear quantification of the contribution of energy efficiency to the greenhouse gas emission target.

“Buildings offer the highest cost-effective savings potential of all sectors, but suffer from an extremely fragmented supply chain. A long-term binding savings target as part of an overall energy efficiency target will be crucial to provide a stable framework and encourage millions of construction businesses to build up capacity and skills”, Loebel concluded.

To the EEIF letter to Council President Van Rompuy here.

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For more details, please contact

PU Europe

Email: secretariat@pu-europe.eu                                           Website: www.pu-europe.eu

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