Energy ‘the new industrial revolution’

TWO years ago nobody would have predicted that Europe’s leaders would agree on anything to do with energy. Now it is being welcomed as a new industrial revolution and the heads of the 27 member states will later today agree to a major policy outline.

They will commit themselves, politically at least, to cut their carbon emissions through a range of measures and they hope this will give them a head start in the battle against climate change.

Instead of preparing for droughts and floods, a loss of jobs and changing agriculture, they are hoping to turn the potential climate catastrophe into a giant opportunity.

Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, in her invitation to the heads of the other 26 member states made it sound as though this was the opening they have all been waiting for.

“Europe is currently experiencing an economic upturn. The reforms… are beginning to bear fruit. We should use this positive development to further modernise Europe and its industry and make them fit to face the challenges ahead,” she said as president of the European Council for this six months.

The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, in his speech before today’s summit, spoke of the €100 billion that could be saved through improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020. Even providing 20% of energy from renewables such as biofuels, wind and wave will create 300,000 jobs and over €20bn worth of business, he said.

The Commission estimated last year that energy savings of 20% could generate up to a million jobs, and points out that in the last 10 years, renewable wind power in Germany, Denmark and Spain has created more than 120,000 jobs.

The context is the pending negotiations on the next stage of the Kyoto agreement with countries being asked to agree new goals for 2020 and even up to 2050.

Europe has already committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 8% between 1990 and 2012 as agreed under the original Kyoto deal. Ms Merkel set out the next goal — cutting emissions by a further 12% between 2012 and 2020. But by the beginning of 2007, the EU had managed to achieve 1.2 % of the 8% reduction agreed in Kyoto.

“Europe is at an important crossroads. If we act decisively now, we have a chance of effectively counteracting the dangers of climate change… Our response to this issue will have repercussions for the future of Europe and beyond,” she said.

On the table is a proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 for developed countries by 30%, and if the rest of the world does not agree, then Europe will go it alone andcut its own emissions by at least 20%.

The environment group, WWF, says that they need to attain the 30% target if temperatures are not to increase above the important 2 degrees.

While 2 degrees may not sound like much, a drop of 4-5 degrees mean there would be glaciers extending as far south as Berlin.

The details, however, may cause some friction among the member states. For instance, the demand that countries bind themselves to provide 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020 is not welcomed by most countries.

Small countries like Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg point out they do not have the space to grow bio fuels or create renewables from other sources.

Other countries prefer to keep their options open as they may need lots of bargaining chips when the real negotiations begin, possibly in a few months time.

Countries like Ireland are more than happy to sign up to binding targets, mostly because it is expected that these will not be applied equally to every country, but will be an average for the EU as a whole.

This applied under the existing Kyoto targets and allowed Ireland to exceed its 1990 CO2 emissions by 13%, well ahead of many other countries. Germany agreed to account for 75% of the reduction in Europe’s CO2 reduction — made possible by the dismantling of the former east German heavy industry. But Ms Merkel has already warned Germany will not be as generous this time around.

There are a number of old reliables on the table tomorrow also, such as creating greater competition in supplying electricity and gas by separating energy production from energy transport and distribution.

Ireland will not be alone in wanting considerable leeway in how this is interpreted and a compromise has already been worked out whereby companies like the ESB can set up a separately managed company to operate the distribution for instance.

A lot of ingenuity will be required to meet the targets too and Europe’s leaders are happy to sign up to spending lots of money on research and hope that they will lead the way in developing the new technologies necessary to save the planet.