On Tuesday 16 March, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union sent a new version of the draft conclusions on the Renovation Wave Strategy, presented last October by the European Commission, to the delegations of the Member States.
The new text contains several new paragraphs compared to the previous draft conclusions (see EUROPE 12663/18). One of them stresses the importance of considering climate change adaptation (and not just climate change mitigation) in public and private buildings and infrastructure being resilient to the inevitable challenges of climate change.
The Portuguese Presidency also proposes to stress the need to leave “sufficient room for manoeuvre” for the Member States on renovation when drafting the forthcoming revisions of the Energy Efficiency (2018/2002), Energy Performance of Buildings (2018/844) and Renewable Energy (2018/2001) Directives. Such flexibility aims to enable Member States “to take into account their national specificities and to define the most cost-efficient policy pathways for the renovation and decarbonisation of their building stock”.
“In assessing the need to renovate worst performing buildings, factors such as property location and value, changes in population and the income of inhabitants also need to be considered”, notes one of the new paragraphs.
For heating and cooling in buildings, the document calls for priority to be given to reducing energy demand and replacing “carbon-intensive or energy inefficient” technologies. In the first version, the Presidency referred to “fossil fuel-based” technologies.
National delegations will discuss the new draft conclusions on 22 March at a meeting of the Council’s Energy Working Group.
Read the draft conclusions: http://bit.ly/3txJIkb (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)