Although some trends are encouraging, greater efforts will be needed if the European Union is to meet its climate targets of reducing net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and becoming climate neutral by 2050, says the European Commission’s ‘State of the Energy Union 2021’ report, published on Tuesday 26 October.
The paper shows that EU emissions are at their lowest level for 30 years in 2020, a 31% drop from 1990 levels.
Between 2019 and 2020, there was an unprecedented 10% drop in emissions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The data for this year is clearly unique due to the global economic slowdown”, the Commission said, adding that a better analysis of the long-term trajectory will be possible next year.
However, the EU had exceeded its target of a 20% reduction in emissions by 2020 even before the pandemic (-24% in 2019 compared to 1990).
In addition, for the first time, renewables overtook fossil fuels as the leading source of electricity in the EU in 2020. According to the report, they produced 38% of the electricity, compared to 37% for fossil fuels.
The latest available data for 2019 indicates that the EU as a whole was on track to meet the 2020 renewable energy target, with a 19.7% share of renewable energy consumption (the 2020 target is 20.6%).
EU lags behind in energy efficiency
Despite these encouraging trends, the EU is lagging behind on its new climate targets set out in the ‘Climate Act’ (see EUROPE 12750/27).
“Projections submitted by Member States in 2021 point to a 34% reduction in GHG net emissions by 2030 with existing measures and to 41% with additional measures, showing more efforts will be needed to reach the at least 55% GHG reduction target”, the Commission said.
In particular, the EU needs to step up its efforts on energy efficiency, despite a decrease in final energy consumption in 2019 (-0.6% compared to 2018).
This decrease, the first in six years, is still insufficient to make up for the backlog in this area (see EUROPE 12582/18).
While the EU had set a target of improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020, the report shows that actual consumption has exceeded the linear path to the 2020 target by 2.3%.
Significant efforts will therefore be required. This is all the more important as the Commission has proposed to aim for an energy efficiency target of 39% for primary energy consumption and 36% for final energy consumption by 2030, as part of the (‘Fit for 55 Package’ - see EUROPE 12762/8).
It will be next year before the Commission has the data to assess whether the 2020 energy efficiency and renewable energy targets have finally been met.
See the report: https://bit.ly/3GlLeNn (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)