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The UK energy minister, Ed Davey, says that compromise is possible over plans for a goal of improving energy efficiency 30% by 2030 in a climate and energy package that EU leaders hope to agree next week.
David Cameron’s government has led calls for a legally enforceable carbon cut of at least 40% in the package but balked at a sub-goal for energy use – even a non-binding one – for fear that a ban on high-powered vacuum cleaners could be used as campaigning ammunition by Ukip.
A third goal to ensure a renewable energy market share of at least 27% across Europe by 2030 has been endorsed by Davey as “a very clever compromise by the EU” because it is non-binding at a state level, meaning the UK can use other technologies such as nuclear and carbon capture and storage to meet the carbon target.
But Davey told the Guardian that he might have some flexibility on the efficiency target issue. “I don’t ever talk about red lines whether in coalition negotiations with other partners or in Europe,” he said. “It is important that we listen to others and find a way forward.”
“We are strong supporters of energy efficiency,” he added. “The question is: what is the most appropriate way of doing it?”
Most EU states view an energy efficiency target as the most cost-effective way of cutting dependence on Russian gas imports, while environmentalists see them as the most verifiable form of emissions reduction. On the other side, energy intensive industries such as steel and cement manufacturers oppose obligations to save energy on cost grounds, as do coal-producing states such as Poland.
But the business sector is divided on the issue. The insulation firm, Knauf Insulation, sent David Cameron a letter last week threatening to divest from Europe unless a 35% energy efficiency target was agreed. The German company has already shut one Italian plant, while opening others in Malaysia and Turkey.
“Right now the only thing that would lead us to view Europe as an attractive investment destination is a political commitment which signals that the EU is serious about energy efficiency,” Knauf’s CEO Tony Robson wrote.
Gene Murtagh, the CEO of construction manufacturer, Kingspan, which employs 2,500 workers in the UK also wrote to the prime minister last week, warning that “a binding 30% energy efficiency target is the very minimum needed to give me the confidence to expand Kingspan’s UK operations.”
This week, another 11 businesses – including Ikea, Unilever and Philips – sent Cameron a letter calling for a robust energy savings target, as did the mayors of several British cities, including Bristol, Aberdeen and Leicester.
The British position though remains for an non-bindingenergy saving target of just 25%, which the EU believes would represent a halving of current rates of progress over the next 16 years, at the same time that events in Ukraine have shot energy security up the political agenda.
“If you look at central and east European countries, or at the Netherlands and others, they are having problems with too many targets that create inflexibilities for them,” Davey said. “They all want to lower emissions and share the UK’s position on an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target but they want to do that in way that gives them flexibility. In some cases that will be by using energy efficiency, but not in all cases.”
Davey added that a strong 2030 energy and climate agreement on 23 October would send a powerful political signal to the Russian premier Vladimir Putin about Europe’s energy security.
“We’ve seen Russian aggression and Putin using energy as one of his strategic tools. It is a serious issue for the EU,” he said. “If we fail to reach agreement next week, we will be laughed at in Moscow. They will say: ‘They can’t even get their act together on energy. We can’t take them seriously. The EU is divided, weak and therefore vulnerable.”
EU officials say that hopes of a deal emerging from a leaders’ summit on 23 October have risen with advances being made on Polish demands for more burden-sharing and financial solidarity – much of it from Germany – to help east European countries to meet the carbon target.
Davey has garnered praise for leading work on this, but a Polish government official told the Guardian that a deal was far from done. “I don’t see any progress I’m afraid,” he said. “I hope that that there will be some in the coming days.”
