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The UK government has succeeded in watering down a key EU-wide agreement on energy efficiency, to the dismay of green campaigners.
Under the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), member states will be allowed to set their own targets for energy efficiency, instead of the original plan for a mandatory EU-wide target of 20% improvements in efficiency. The result is likely to be a smaller improvement, of 17%.
Energy suppliers will have to improve their energy efficiency by 1.5% a year from 2014 to 2020, but green campaigners said that the number of exceptions included would bring the figure closer to 1%. Exceptions include suppliers being allowed to take into account efficiency improvements made from 2010 – four years before the directive is due to be in force – and prospective improvements from 2020 to 2023, after it has finished.
But the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Davey, claimed it was a victory for the UK and action on climate change, and denied the UK had watered down the agreement. He said:"The deal which has now been agreed is good for the UK and for the EU as a whole and maintains the EU's position as a global leader in tackling climate change.
"It signals a step-change in energy efficiency, and for the first time sets legally binding energy saving targets, which at a time of economic challenge will help improve the EU's competitiveness and boost growth."
He added: "The UK played a central role in not only brokering a deal but also increasing its ambition."
But green campaigners said the inclusion of improvements made since 2010 and after 2020, along with the weakening of ambition in the top line saving from 20% to 17%, were serious weaknesses. It is understood that the UK was the main player arguing for this watering down, as revealed by the Guardian.
Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Dave Timms said: "The UK government played a particularly significant role in weakening the directive by opposing an overall binding energy saving target and, at the last minute, insisting on loopholes so it could claim credit for old policies as a way of meeting its future obligation. Undermining European efforts to promote energy efficiency while proclaiming the benefits at home is both dishonest and damaging, especially from a self-proclaimed 'greenest government ever'."
WWF-UK criticised the government for "cynically undermining" the European Union's EED, saying that the government's position had "effectively scuppered" the potential for energy savings across Europe.
According to the EU, the core of the EED is the obligation on energy companies to help their customers save energy.
This requirement means that industry and the energy sector will have a shared responsibility to deliver concrete savings through, for example, building insulation and using energy-efficient appliances. The directive also requires the public sector to take the lead in the form of requirements for the renovation of state buildings and the promotion of green public procurement.
However, the original proposals would have seen the public sector take on a wider responsibility for efficiency improvements to all the buildings in public sector ownership, including social housing.
Martin Lidegaard, Denmark's energy and climate minister, will present the final compromise text to his ministerial colleagues at the Energy Council meeting on 15 June.
Lidegaard said: "During the last few months enough political momentum has been built up for the EU member states to lift the level of ambition of the directive in the final negotiations. Just a few months ago the European Parliament and the council were so far apart that it was almost utopian to believe in an agreement. But now we have taken another big step towards a more sustainable energy future."
Comments
14 June 2012 5:31PM
We are trying to tweek an unsustainable system. Nobody wants to take the big decisions that might make a difference.
14 June 2012 6:06PM
You cant do things in big steps if you run a nation because the impact if you did so would be too big for those that live or invest in that nation.
Several small steps mean everyone is happy.
Plus it gives us more time to invent ways to gather and use natural resources far more efficiently than we can currently be bothered. VentalaRaya you still right in what you say. I believe the big steps are to revisit what we consider important to aid our future success and to make happen the changes we need to live together sustainably. Easy said....
14 June 2012 6:24PM
You have to see it from the UK point of view. Since we start 20 years behind the best in Europe in renewable energy and the energy efficiency of our housing stock any change we have to make is more dramatic - so anything we can do to slow the rest of Europe down makes the transition less painful. This is obvious from the inflection of Ed Davey's eyebrows - the photo must have taken after he said the line
14 June 2012 7:10PM
The UK government has succeeded in watering down a key EU-wide agreement on energy efficiency
A proud day for the Tories?
Blackguards!
14 June 2012 7:19PM
As a species we are again revealing our genetically inbuilt predisposition to discount the future, meaning we always place more importance on today even at the expense of tomorrow, with the result that we will condemn our grandchildren to a future of self reinforcing climate change. It’s pretty obvious Ed Davey doesn’t appreciate just how imminent and serious the consequences of this too little too late approach will be for future generations.
This link goes to a good article describing our tendency to discount the future, although the first graphic says it all.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2243
To appreciate just how dire the situation is, these three links go to two articles, the first reporting on a recent paper in the Journal Nature, highlighting the fact that climate change is a non linear process meaning sudden irreversible ‘state shifts’ can occur, the second goes to the MAHB website that has a link to an article by Ian Duncan. The final link goes to a presentation by Prof. Kevin Anderson.
http://www.countercurrents.org/cds080612.htm
http://mahb.stanford.edu/recentnews/climate-change-what-it-means-in-terms-of-energy/
http://www.slideshare.net/DFID/professor-kevin-anderson-climate-change-going-beyond-dangerous
14 June 2012 9:56PM
The WWF and FE comment on European policy and yet they get a majority of their operating costs from grants from the EC. They lobby the Brtish government with public funds (from the EC) to change policy that subsides "green technology". The green "energy" sector lobbies the EC to increase "efficiency" mandates for power generation and distribution (and this is to be acheived by installing wind turbines in the North Sea!!!.). The energy companies have to buy carbon offsets to allow them to produce energy (you know to keep the lights on) on the carbon exchange based in Europe that is managed by the EC and has a number of "charities' as major investors. You gotta laugh or you would cry.
14 June 2012 11:04PM
The greenest government ever - by EU directive?
14 June 2012 11:35PM
Whatever happened to Britain as the pioneer of technological advance? How low our ambition has sunk. The best paid people in the UK are corporate fat cats, lawyers, bankers, pop stars and footballers. Engineers and inventors are relegated to the sidelines while the non-productive pigs slurp up the cash in the trough
15 June 2012 5:01AM
greenhaus
14 June 2012 9:56PM
Spot on.
15 June 2012 8:19AM
At last a bit of sense from the DECC.
It's only a start, but perhaps 25% cuts in renewable subsidies will follow.
One can but hope.
15 June 2012 9:50AM
Not in my name.
This government is an embarassment - we are the dirty man of Europe.
15 June 2012 10:40AM
I'm a bit puzzled but the implication that DECC is somehow a British government ministry, given the numbers of people seconded to DECC by EdF and Gazprom (amongst others)
Thus DECC could be characterised as an agency of the French and Russian governments - respectively - lobbying on behalf of these two governments interests. Saving enegy - what's not to like? unless you are a supplier of energy. DECC - representing the interests that matter.
15 June 2012 11:14AM
This is the same person that was talking about a 30% target only a few weeks ago.
The UK will seek a 30 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, an increase from the 20 per cent target at present, Greg Barker, climate change minister, told the Financial Times in an interview
15 June 2012 12:38PM
20% of energy coming from renewable sources and a 17%-20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020. We have to start somewhere and that is a sensible starting place I believe.
Once industry catches on to the cost savings that energy efficiency initiatives can enable it will gather momentum and government will be able to set more ambitious targets. By that time renewable technologies will have grid parity on the horizon....when that happens we can look forward to some truly ambitious targets for 2030 and have a very decent hope of achieving them.