"Today's vote in the European Parliament has backed energy efficiency as the best and fastest route to green jobs, reduced import dependence and real reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Now the pressure is on the European Commission to recommend a binding 2020 target for energy savings in the Energy Efficiency Action Plan due next March," Brook Riley from Friends of the Earth Europe told EurActiv.
In October 2006, the European Commission presented its Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, which comprised a large number of measures in ten priority areas. These included energy performance standards for energy-using products such as boilers, copiers and lighting, new energy standards for buildings, and legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions from cars, although none were legally binding.
A mid-term revision of the action plan was scheduled for 2009 and a leaked Commission draft in autumn 2009 indicated that the EU executive planned to impose binding energy-efficiency targets on EU member states. However, the plan was deferred to Günther Oettinger's energy department, which has been working on a new draft. According to the latest information, the European Commission will present this long-awaited update of the 2006 action plan in March 2011.
Despite this positive news, EurActiv reports that a leaked Commission paper presenting "preliminary ideas" for the next action plan has acknowledged that the EU will not reach its target of reducing energy consumption by 20% by 2020 in light of the latest projections. "Europe only made half of the way," it says.
As a consequence, The European Parliament's resolution urges the EU executive to prioritise enforcing existing legislation and assess how it is being implemented. The Commission should also include measures like "individual energy efficiency targets" that will bring an energy savings of at least 20% at EU-level, it said. MEPs are calling for a binding target to help drive energy savings, similar to the mandatory targets on renewable energy and carbon dioxide emissions which have already led to energy savings.
Improve standards and introduce financial incentives
"Better product standards is a very efficient instrument at EU level. The existing initiatives on consumer items such as white goods, lighting and television sets entail savings equal to the entire consumption of Great Britain or Italy. These initiatives should therefore be strengthened and extended to other areas," said Danish MEP Bendt Bendtsen (European People's Party), who drew up the resolution.
MEPs also advocated financial incentives to remove hurdles from renovating existing buildings to improve their efficiency. The Commission should also extend its building policy to eco-districts and set up schemes such as district refurbishment plans, they said.
WWF commended the call for a binding target. Arianna Vitali of WWF told EurActiv that it is the only way to "define the clear obligation to deliver the energy savings that EU citizens and industries are waiting for".
But European SME association UEAPME warned that the recommendation on the extension of the Eco-design Directive may be "a step too far" for them, which they said requires an impact assessment on its consequences for SMEs. They also said that the Commission should not take on board the recommendation for a modal shift in transport policy but instead revert to a "co-modality" approach.
"Each mode of transport has its own competitive advantages and depending on the segment it is not necessarily possible to shift freight or passenger transport from one mode to another. That is why an indiscriminate shift to low energy transport modes, as recommended by the Parliament, is not a realistic option," said Guido Lena, sustainable development director at UEAPME.
The European Commission calculates that meeting the 20% target could inject €78 billion annually into the EU economy through lower energy bills while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 560 million tonnes.
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