C 152/130
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
6.4.2022
3.8.
The Delegated Taxonomy Regulation on Climate Mitigation may, if accepted by Council and Parliament, steer future investments towards sustainable assets, the category to which renewable energy belongs.
Only when distortions of competition between energy sources are eliminated will renewables be able to compete freely in the market.
Pending such an outcome, the EESC welcomes the Commission’s approach, which prevents renewable energies from falling behind.
4.
Specific comments on the text of the directive a) The question of whether or not the proposed aims should be binding 4.1.
The EESC reiterates its criticism (7) that the review of the directive does not contain binding national targets, unlike the 2009 revision.
While the EU has met its target of increasing the share of renewables to 20 % in 2020, some Member States have failed to meet their targets, with others only just managing to do so (8), benefiting from the particular situation caused by the health crisis, which has brought some national economies to a standstill.
This example illustrates the weakness of the current governance framework, which only provides for ‘encouraging’ Member States to meet their national targets.
The EESC calls on the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission to reopen the debate on setting binding national targets, on the appropriate energy governance and/or, at the very least, on more coercive measures against offending Member States to ensure that national ambitions are met.
Here, the directive is going as far as voluntary action can go.
While several Member States have exceeded their forecasts for 2020, there is a risk of a race to the bottom, which would cause the countries that have made the most progress to be discouraged by the lack of willingness of some of their counterparts and by the lack of consequences.
4.2.
As regards the new binding target of 40 % renewable energy by 2030 (previously 32 %), this concerns all energy consumption and not just electricity consumption.
The EESC welcomes the fact that the Commission has proposed the most ambitious target within the range identified in the climate target plan (38-40 %) to meet the new 55 % greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030.
This demonstrates the EU executive’s ambition to speed up the roll-out of green technologies, which the EESC welcomes.
However, this greater share of renewables in the electricity mix of Member States will have consequences in terms of energy and electricity consumption (9) as the share of energy consumption is expected to fall by 2050.
It is important to update the 2050scenarios in the light of the new targets, in particular by specifying the role that could be played by electricity storage, which will have to be developed more rapidly than expected, or the role of energy saving, including certain behaviours that have been highlighted by the health crisis.
4.3.
However, this new target will prove very ambitious for some Member States.
At a time when in many Member States the decarbonisation of the building sector is lagging behind, the EESC supports the proposed approach of boosting efforts in specific sectors, such as using renewable energies in the heating and cooling sector.
It is true that a specific target of 49 % for the share of renewable energy in buildings, as set out in the new Article 15a, was urgently needed.
Nevertheless, the EESC questions the non-binding nature of such a target.
The buildings sector will have to reduce its emissions by 60 % by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2040 in order to meet the targets set in the European Green Deal.
Given that many Member States may struggle to meet this target, the EESC stresses the importance of using the funding from the Social Climate Fund from 2025 onwards.
This should make it possible to speed up renovations of both public and private buildings and thus stem the growing phenomenon of fuel poverty, which affects over 30 million Europeans.
However, whether the funding comes from the future Social Climate Fund or, more generally, from other aid mechanisms, a tracking mechanism must be implemented to ensure that this funding is properly allocated to the fight against climate change.
If these funds are subsumed into national budgets, it will be impossible to effectively monitor the use of the resources allocated.
These funds will also have to focus not only on large-scale projects, but also on smaller ones, where the monetary gain in terms of MWh and CO2 emissions is more modest, but where the impact on European citizens is equally or even more significant.
The EESC calls for the allocation criteria in the various Member States to be harmonised, where possible, as regards the share to be devoted to getting citizens active in order to facilitate possible cross-border cooperation.
4.4.
The EESC wishes to point out that the decarbonisation of the industrial sector is far too slow at present, even though this sector has been the first to be targeted by successive European climate plans.
In practical terms, industrial emissions are covered by the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
However, due to the existence of an overly generous free allocation scheme, more than 90 % of industrial pollution is cost-neutral for the companies involved, resulting in the
(7) (8) (9)
7.
OJ C 246, 28.7.2017, p. 55.
Eurostat, Renewable energy statistics — Statistics Explained (europa.eu).
6_FR_ACT_part1_v3.pdf (europa.eu).