Buildings

The nations of the European Union (greenwichmeantime.com)

Published on October 24th, 2014 | by Sandy Dechert

Relief, Some Disappointment After EU Climate Pact (VIDEO)

October 24th, 2014 by Sandy Dechert

In Friday’s wee hours, the 28-nation European Union committed itself to fight climate change by rolling back dangerous carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 to at least 40% less than their benchmark 1990 levels. The EU has already almost met its existing goal of a 20% cut by 2020.

The unanimous move to accept the new 2030 EU climate target speaks well for the European Union. A venerable, strong bloc of developed nations, it has made the first major commitment in the world to the goal of global climate agreement in Paris by the end of 2015 (effective 2020).

Perhaps more importantly, the EU climate decision provides a powerful impetus for the rest of the world to get its act together before December’s UN meeting in Lima, the vital runup to a Paris accord. Europe has now put China, North America, Russia, India, Australia, and others to the test.

At the same time, the EU’s decision has disappointed many who feel the nations have not gone far enough, though the Europe’s own effort has gone quickly and successfully. Chief among the downhearted are those who rejoiced at this week’s release of a “no regrets” primer from the World Resources Institute claiming that a deeper cut—9% more decarbonization and less natural gas use, to be precise—could be achieved.

Angela Merkel may top the list of individuals. While US and other international media seem to concur with, and praise, her words at an early-morning news conference—“that Europe will be… an important party in future binding commitments of an international climate agreement”— the German chancellor also expressed regret that the EU climate talks had lowballed on energy efficiency (insulation, for example) and renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.) targets. Ms. Merkel told those assembled:

“We could have envisaged getting more, but in the spirit of compromise, we decided to agree on a [less binding] 27% target.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/europe/european-leaders-agree-on-targets-to-fight-climate-change-.html?_r=0

Timeline of projected EU emissions rollbacks (European Commission roadmap, ec.europa.eu)

Nevertheless, by gaining universal agreement in Brussels on a binding 40% reduction and other broad goals, the EU has kept to its word almost completely, made compromises among nations where they were sensible, and overcome quite a few anticipated obstacles. These concerns take three forms: European national, EU-centered, and international.

European national concerns

A patchwork of 28 sovereign nations, the European Union suffers from conflicting internal energy priorities and some resulting environmental policy differences:

Development of cheap shale gas by some European countries.
Production of and economic dependence on coal, notably by Poland and the Czech Republic.
Differing commitments to the use of nuclear power.
French reluctance to extend power lines over the Pyrenees, which would allow Portugal and Spain to export their surplus power from renewables.

EU-centered concerns

Europe’s current economic uncertainty (the sovereign debt crisis): France, Italy, and the European Central Bank urge Germany to relax on budgets, spend more to stimulate the Eurozone.

International concerns

Cheap shale gas and coal from non-EU nations.
Uncertainty about Russia destabilizing the Ukraine.
Positions of China and India.
Middle East tensions.

In the end, the European Union had to make some side deals to reach the agreement. Germany and the Nordic countries preferred greater commitments, and strident Sweden even held out until the last hours. (The nongovernmental organization Greenpeace had pushed for an emissions cut of 55%.) The UK’s resistance to the high initial cost of energy efficiency clashed with the desires of Germany and Denmark to make them compulsory.

Others worried that the EU might be setting too high a target, unattainable by the largest polluters (China and US). Some feared that the combination of subsidies for clean technology and cheap shale gas from outside nations might weaken European finances.

From European Council President Herman Van Rompuy:

“It was not easy, not at all, but we managed to reach a fair decision. It sets Europe on an ambitious yet cost-effective climate and energy path.”

“Deal!” he said in a tweet.

The Council as a whole announced online that Europe was on target for its 2050 goals. It praised the coordinated approach among member states and noted that the pact will ensure regulatory certainty for investors, as well as enabling the EU to engage actively in the Lima and Paris negotiations on a new international climate agreement for 2020. Many media analyses view the accomplishment as a triumph for diplomacy between environment and energy interests, which can often end unsatisfactorily.

The World Resources Institute’s farther-reaching analysis of EU climate opportunities, released Monday of this week, shows how the 28-country European bloc might be able to achieve carbon reductions of 49% by 2030 by slashing natural gas imports in half. By doing so, the EU would more than meet its stated international commitment and would also substantially increase its own energy independence. From WRI:

“The potential energy security benefits from cost-effective efficiency improvements and realistic renewable energy growth suggest that the EU itself has much to gain from a more aggressive approach. By encouraging reductions beyond the 40 percent currently proposed, the EU can drive greater climate action globally by showing that countries can cut emissions while strengthening energy security and other domestic policy priorities.”

More on the WRI proposals for EU climate and energy in an update later this weekend. For now, Van Rompuy has the last word, claiming victory for the “most ambitious, cost-effective” climate approach thus far.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Australia, Canada, carbon dioxide, China, co2 emissions, COP 19, cop 20, Decarbonization, energy efficiency, EU climate, EU climate agreement, Europe, Germany, greenhouse gas, India, Lima, Paris, Renewable Energy, Russia, UNFCCC, US, World Resources Institute

About the Author

Sandy Dechert covers environmental, health, renewable and conventional energy, and climate change news. She's worked for groundbreaking environmental consultants and a Fortune 100 health care firm, writes two top-level blogs on Examiner.com, ranked #2 on ONPP's 2011 Top 50 blogs on Women's Health, and attributes her modest success to an "indelible habit of poking around to satisfy my own curiosity."

Bob_Wallace

“the real hogs are heating and transport”

And we can’t heat with electricity? Think well built buildings. People are building houses in the cold parts of northern Europe which need almost no heating. Add in today’s very efficient heat pumps and geothermal heat pumps.

And we can’t move ourselves around with electricity? We’re already doing it. We’ve got a few hundred thousands of EVs on the road. Electric buses have made an appearance. Trains run on electricity.

There’s not decrease in lifestyle in any of the above.

Beware of the use of Jeavons Paradox. It’s one of the most overused ideas around. Lots of people throw it out as an argument when they don’t actually understand what it says.

(a side note: people are going to replace their TV either because the old one has worn out or because they want a bigger/nicer one. The new one will almost always be more efficient than the old one and they won’t suffer at all from the increased efficiency,)

Why do we have to cut energy use? If our energy source is essentially infinite why do we have to cut or use.

(Yes, efficiency does make it easier to get fossil fuels off the grid, but that is not what you were saying.)

” Because the energy use of an electric car is not all that much lower than that of a gasoline powered one”

Hello? ICEVs convert about 20% of the energy in their fuel to kinetic energy. And that’s after a large amount of energy has been spent getting the fossil fuel extracted, refined and distributed. EVs convert about 90% of the electricity they use into kinetic energy. There’s about a 10% energy loss in battery charging and a few percent loss in distribution.
- Larmion
  
  - We can heat electrically, sure. But direct electric energy makes no sense financially or environmentally (run an exergy analysis if you don’t believe me). Using PV-powered heat pumps is possible, but financially unviable without subsidy (I did the math for my own – well insulated – house).
  
  The best solution to green heating is district heating, powered by large, centralized geothermal facilities or by waste heat from industrial processes. But that requires a change in political and social thinking.
  
  – We can move ourselves around electrically, but an electric car doesn’t go far towards a reduction in net primary energy. Besides, while electric cars solve the most egregious externalities of driving (air pollution, climate change), they still present the same hazard to cyclists and pedestrians, still cause congestion, still require expensive infrastructure etc. A modal shift is far preferable.
  
  As for your lost point: that’s neglecting the inefficiency in generating electricity. Sure, electrical driving uses less primary energy – but not enough to get to a 27% reduction.
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    Perhaps you should read up on heat pumps and geothermal heat pumps.
    
    District heating is fine is there is waste heat that can be utilized. Most of don’t live cheek to jowl with large manufacturing plant that burn a lot of fossil fuel. And burning a lot of fossil fuel….
    
    “We can move ourselves around electrically, but an electric car doesn’t go far towards a reduction in net primary energy.”
    
    ” electrical driving uses less primary energy – but not enough to get to a 27% reduction.”
    
    Switching to EVs cuts oil use for personal transportation 100%. About 4x 27%.
Jan Veselý

Hello from CZ, the country which already reached greenhouse gas reduction target. It is easy when you start in 1990. With wasteful post-communist industry and 2GW of half completed nuclear reactors which are now able to make about 20% of electricity consumed.
- Ross
  
  So there should be no economic disadvantage relative to other countries if CZ does more than this agreement would let them get away with.
  - Larmion
    
    Well, not really. CZ, like the UK, aims to use nuclear power to green their electricity generation – something the EU does not accept. As such, they could end up missing their EU goals despite achieving the required carbon reduction.
    
    Rather than being technology neutral (set a target like ‘reduce carbon emissions by 50%’ and let each country choose a way of achieving that – be it renewables, nuclear or simply using less energy), the EU mandates renewables even for countries that don’t really want them.
    
    Mind you, I’m not advocating nuclear. It’s expensive (especially if the waste is dealt with properly – which certainly is possible, unlike what some activists claim) and it’s a sector that is entirely devoid of economies of scale.
    
    That being said, I strongly believe that an increase in nuclear generation is far preferable to fossil fuels. If a country absolutely wants to go for nuclear over renewables, let them. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      ” It’s expensive (especially if the waste is dealt with properly – which certainly is possible”
      
      What’s the proper/possible solution for nuclear waste?
      
      The only thing that I can think of is establishing a perpetual fund that will pay for repacking spent fuel in new dry casks every hundred years or so for thousands of years in the future.
      
      Of course, that solution works only as long as that particular country/economic system holds up. I’m not seeing any systems set up even as late as Medieval times still hanging together….
      - Koenraad Coel
        
        Presumably you could launch them into space at the sun. Not sure if we could ever get that to be energy efficient though :-P.
        Joking aside, I would also like to hear about a more long term solution, especially since our dimwit politicians (Belgium in this case) are not about to retire our ancient nuclear plants :'(.
      - Larmion
        
        And what would you suggest our dumbass politicians do instead? If the plants were to close on schedule, the slack would have to be picked up by fossil plants that are far, far worse for our health than even a Fukushima-scale accident.
        
        Deploying renewables with sufficient capacity to fully replace the nuclear plants in time is nigh impossible even without the NIMBY’s (the true dumbasses) that oppose wind turbines in their local communities – something even the (so called) Green Party members tend to do.
        
        Our nuclear power plants aren’t exactly ancient. Doel 1 is indeed a fairly old (but rather safe) design and will close on schedule. The rest is fairly modern.
        
        Belgium hasn’t seriously thought about energy policy for decades. Our energy transition should have started back in the days of Verhofstadt, Van de Lanotte and their peers in the Purple-Green government. Their inaction has finally caught up with us, and now it’s too late for an elegant solution. More fossil plants are disastrous, immediate construction of new renewables impossible and more import expensive. If keeping open the nuclear plants a bit longer buys us the time we need, I’m all for it.
        
        As for a long term solution: we have one and it’s ready to build. A permanent repository in the Boomse Klei is a perfect solution, given it’s one of Europe’s most stable geological formations and has been assessed fully (some of my old university professors were involved in that).
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Perhaps you failed to notice. Germany sped up its rate of reactor closure which caused them to burn a small amount of additional coal for about three years.
        
        Now they’re back on track and reducing fossil fuel use once more.
        
        Japan is doing the same. Just on a larger scale so it will take them a bit longer to get the additional fossil fuel off their grids.
        
        In those places where plants are in good condition and the local population willing to live next to them we would be best off to use those plants until we get coal plants shut down.
        
        But as our nuclear plants age out it makes absolutely no sense to replace them with new ones. The nuclear age is drawing to a close. And it looks like we’re going to escape with only minimal damage.
      - Larmion
        
        Perhaps you failed to notice. Belgium is not Germany. For starters, nuclear power’s share of generation is far higher in Belgium (50-55%), making a swift nuclear exit harder. More importantly, Germany had significant spare fossil capacity as well as significant new renewable capacity additions. Belgium is already a net importer of electricity and has no spare capacity beyond one small gas fired unit.
        
        Oh, and let’s not forget buiding new capacity, both fossil and renewable, is easier in Germany than it is in one of Europe’s densily populated area’s. We have no hydro, little biomass and limited sites for onshore wind.
        
        As for Japan: their carbon emissions are at a record high and are not predicted to come down anytime soon unless at least some reactors are restarted.
        
        So far, the only country that is on track to complete a nuclear exit is Germany. And that is a country that had a relatively minor share of nuclear power in the first place, combined with a buoyant economy and strong political consensus.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Well, Belgium has the choice of purchasing less expensive renewable energy if it doesn’t want to build expensive nuclear. Up to Belgians. No money out of my pocket.
      - Larmion
        
        Most countries currently use a once-through cycle: mine, refine, use once and dump.
        
        Some others, notably France, Japan and Russia, do it a bit better: reprocessing. By recovering some fissile material from the waste and using it to produce MOX, the amount of radioactive waste is cut sharply. That waste can then be buried in stable geologic layers without any problem – a layer needs to be stable only for a fairly short period (500.000 years, which is nothing in geological terms and well within the scope of current calculation methods).
        
        But the main thing is that present reactors were designed to produce as much waste as possible. That waste was the source of nuclear weapons, the original purpose of nuclear power plants.
        
        Plenty of designs, including fast reactors, breeders and those using the thorium cycle, do not produce any waste. The political will just needs to be there to use it
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Here’s the problem with your solution.
        
        No one is using it.
        
        Now ask yourself why.
        
        (The answer, if you manage to find it, will be a combination of cost and uncertainty.)
      - Larmion
        
        I said as much in my original post: clean nuclear is possible but more expensive than renewables.
        
        However, some countries are ideologically opposed to renewables. If those countries want to choose nuclear instead, let them – even a so-so nuclear fuel policy still yields better environmental results than burning coal.
        
        For once, the green movement shouldn’t let the great be the enemy of the good.
    - Jan Veselý
      
      Czech nuclear dreams are based on incredible success of the Temelin plant. That plant was in fact expensive but it was paid in CZK and our currency dramatically inflated during early 90’s, so looking back it looks cheap and once it was finished, the electricity price spiked and the power plant was paid off quickly. But can it happen once again?
      Moreover renewables was discredited in CZ, our politicians totally screwed up the FiT.
  - Jan Veselý
    
    We definitely will. There are 2 GW of surplus lignite power plant capacity (all exported with minimal-to-zero profit) and the hit of last few years is insulation, insulation, insulation.
Jan Veselý

How will be energy efficiency counted? Energy per country? Per capita? Per unit of GDP? Which year is the baseline?
- Larmion
  
  The EU efficiency targets mandate a reduction in primary energy use, so ‘energy per country’. The baseline is usually the first year of the program, in this case 2020. But that has been less of an ironclad rule.
  - Jan Veselý
    
    Thanks. This looks to be the hardest one of those three.
    - Larmion
      
      It is by far, which is probably why it’s non-binding.
      
      Unlike, say, cleaning up electricity production, which requires only technological change, reducing energy usage will require a vast change in lifestyle: a modal shift in transportation (going from gasoline to electric car is not enough, you need to switch from car to public transport), a radical rethink of how we use heating and cooling and significant efforts by industry.
      
      If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in science and technology, it’s this: a radical technological change is easier to obtain than even the smallest change in lifestyle. I’ve seen it in health, in agriculture and in industry. Transport and housing will be no different I’m afraid.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        “reducing energy usage will require a vast change in lifestyle”
        
        Why? What lifestyle change is necessary if your light switch is attached to a LED rather than an incandescent? If your refer uses half or less electricity? If your TV, computer and water heater are more efficient?
        
        “going from gasoline to electric car is not enough, you need to switch from car to public transport”
        
        Why? Why must one move to public transport if their personal vehicle is made from sustainable materials and renewable energy and powered by renewable energy?
        
        The way we kill the climate change dragon is to use solutions which require little or no lifestyle changes. Even better, solutions which improve lifestyle.
        
        Plugging ones EV in in a few seconds when parked is a meaningful lifestyle improvement over standing outside in the weather filling your gas tank. Living in a well insulated house is more comfortable than living in a drafty, poorly heated/cooled house.
      - Steve Grinwis
        
        Well said Bob
      - Jan Veselý
        
        Behavorial change is possible, I’ve seen that, but it takes time and technicians simply doesn’t have the skill to do that. You have to incorporate those guys with humanistic education (sociology, psychology, marketing, design, …). That is a secret mojo of Silicon Valley, put together excellent technicians with hippies (like Jobs).
Joseph Dubeau

I like the video. Sounds like a new grid being develop.
“Development of cheap shale gas” – Fracking – disappointing.
I guess EV are not part of the plan to reduce CO2 emission – more disappointed.

good article Sandy.

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