At the first informal ministerial meeting under the Spanish Presidency, in Valladolid, Spain, the European energy and environment ministers devoted their second day of discussions, on Tuesday 11 July, to preparations for COP28 (see other news) and the energy sector’s contribution to reducing global emissions and achieving the 1.5 degree target for global warming. Delegations also met on the sidelines of the meeting to examine the role that nuclear energy can play in decarbonising the EU.
The European ministers’ demands concerning the energy sector’s contribution to climate efforts are manifold: the sector must significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions linked to production, put an end to methane leaks by 2030 (see EUROPE 13087/24) and to gas flaring (except where safety conditions cannot be guaranteed), and increase the electrification of its production.
Investment in renewable energy
The ministers also expect energy companies to invest more in renewable energies. On this subject, Spain’s Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, mentioned the establishment of a global renewable energy target, already put forward by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“This could be an interesting area to explore: how can available, sustainable energy solutions be deployed quickly and efficiently? (...) These are solutions that depend not just on technical equipment, but also on networks and the capacity to install and connect them, with costs that can differ from one region to another”, she told a handful of journalists.
Nuclear Alliance
According to countries like France, it is important to make progress on renewable energy targets in order to combat climate change, “but we must also take into account all decarbonised energies. This includes nuclear power”, stated the office of the French Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, prior to the informal meeting.
On this point, at the end of the day France organised a meeting of the ‘Nuclear Alliance’, bringing together more than a dozen countries “more or less similar” to those present at the last meeting (see EUROPE 13183/10), as well as the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, to “reiterate the importance of nuclear energy in decarbonising the EU” and to ask the European Commission and the Spanish Presidency “to include nuclear energy in all the relevant texts being prepared and discussed”.
A meeting of the ‘Friends of Renewability’, comprising 12 countries, also took place in the evening, chaired by Austria, which opposes France’s vision (the latter not having been invited). The Spanish minister confirmed her attendance at these two meetings on the fringes of the informal meeting.
Electricity market reform
Regarding the reform of the electricity market, Teresa Ribera indicated that the subject was not on the agenda, but that it was possible that discussions were taking shape “in the corridors”.
Lastly, she stated that the issue was one of the Spanish Presidency’s priorities, which she described as “relevant to the European response to the crisis, such as discussions on critical raw materials, the decarbonisation of industry and the competitiveness of Europe’s industrial fabric”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)