E3G

Energy, Climate, Democracy and the Future of Europe

By Marina Brutinel

Europe has the capacity and resources – both internally and globally – to lead the necessary transformation to a low carbon and energy secure economy, but current European actions in this area is not adequate to the scale of the task.

The EU cannot balance the goals of energy security, climate security and competitiveness: it needs to achieve all of them at the same time. This requires a form of convergent policymaking which cuts across traditional boundaries and builds imaginative and forceful synergies. Despite the existence of an embryonic European Energy policy, it remains very weak in the face of the challenges it is trying to address.

The absence of mutual reinforcing EU policies is illustrated by the fact that, at the moment, EU climate policy is being watered down when it should be accelerated in order to deliver energy security objectives. In the automobile sector, for example, the difference between US and EU car efficiency – mainly driven by climate change policies – has already saved the EU 0.5% of GDP per annum in oil costs since 2004. High energy prices mean that similar economic gains have resulted from other climate change polices on domestic and commercial energy efficiency and the promotion of European energy services markets. The UK alone will reap net economic benefits of over Euro 150 billion from its current climate change programme to deliver Kyoto; Germany has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs from its aggressive renewable energy programmes.

Such initiatives, that have immediate ecological, economic and security impacts, should be enhanced to encourage further and quicker investment in energy and climate security. The EU is well placed to do this, as many of these initiatives – such as the EU Emission trading system – require sophisticated public-private partnerships. Europe has decades of experience in creating these approaches, and unlike the US has strong public political support for further action.

Put another way, while the US has created the world’s most effective military-industrial innovation system; Europe is well placed to create the world’s most effective innovation and investment system for clean energy technologies and services.