2030 FRAMEWORK FOR CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICIES
In the last 20 years, the EU has been successful in decoupling GHG emissions from economic growth. While its emissions have decreased with 17% over the period 1990-2011, the overall economy grew by 48%. In parallel to these developments, the EU has made significant progress towards the creation of internal energy markets for electricity and gas, has promoted a significant expansion of new renewable energy technologies and made important energy efficiency gains. Moreover, the EU is making progress in ensuring the security of energy supplies but the affordability of energy and the competitiveness of EU energy prices are of increasing concern.
Culminating in the Climate and Energy Package of 2009 (Directives 2009/28/EC, 2009/29/EC, 2009/30/EC, 2009/31/EC and Decision 406/2009/EC) there is a comprehensive framework for climate and those energy policies primarily relating to sustainability until 2020. In addition, the Commission adopted its broader Energy 2020 strategy in late 2010 (COM(2010) 639). The recently adopted Energy Efficiency Directive (Directive 2012/27/EU) will, once implemented, make a significant contribution towards meeting the 2020 energy efficiency target.
The Europe 2020 Strategy highlights the importance of achieving the 2020 targets for sustainable growth while initiating work on the long term perspective as key part of the Europe 2020 flagship initiative « Resource efficient Europe ». 2020 is in this regard only an intermediate step. As regards climate change, the long term goal is to limit temperature changes to 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, which guides EU’s climate action. In line with the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the European Council has agreed to the objective in the context of necessary reductions by developed countries as a group to reduce GHG emissions by 80-95% in 2050 compared to 1990, and global emissions will need to be reduced by at least 50% compared to 1990 to increase chances to avoid dangerous climate change. The European Council has also requested that due consideration should be given to fixing intermediary stages towards reaching the 2050 objective and has stated « safe, secure, sustainable and affordable energy contributing to European competitiveness remains a priority for Europe ».
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