Brussels, 27/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Shortly ahead of the first European Council devoted solely to energy issues, which will be held in Brussels on 4 February, the Greens Group at the European Parliament, armed with forecasts for 2050 of the Öko-Institut of Berlin, is pleading in favour of immediate Community action on energy policy. The study carried out by three experts, Dr Felix Matthes, Dr Wiebke Zimmer and Hauke Hermann, which is entitled Vision 2050, gives a detailed presentation of an energy scenario which shows how the EU can achieve an objective to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% by 2050, and describes what is at stake and the impact of each economic sector. It also stresses the considerable advantages for the energy security of the EU, particularly by drastically reducing its energy dependency.
“This scenario confirms that technically, we can meet the greenhouse gas reduction objectives which are a matter of climatic urgency, and we can draw considerable gains from this, in terms of employment in the sector of green technology and energy security, by saving €130 billion on our imports in 2020, €260 billion in 2030 and €455 billion in 2050”, said Claude Turmes, calling on the leaders to make “immediate” political decisions. “This is a crucial moment for the climate and energy future of Europe. Investments between now and 2020 will be decisive in determining the future European energy sector. Energy savings, renewable energy and updating the electricity networks must become European priorities. This is the message we expect to hear from the European leaders on 4 February”, the Luxembourg MEP stressed.
In the view of Yannick Jadot, new impetus is particularly “indispensable” for energy savings. “Without new concrete measures, the EU will not reach the objective of reducing energy consumption by 20% by 2020. The Parliament recently called for this objective to become binding, and for an effort to be made to improve the heating efficiency of our buildings. The European leaders must agree to this, at the risk of wasting billions of euros, 1 million jobs, weakening our industry, which has positioned itself on these markets of the future, and spiralling energy bills”, the French MEP explained.
The German Rebecca Harms warned: “Waiting any longer before taking action on energy efficiency and renewables will increase the risk that the EU could lose ground to the emerging economies such as China in the green technologies sector”.
The study is available at the website of the Greens/EFA: http://www.greens-efa.org . (E.H./transl.fl)