News | Energy Efficiency

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/business/global/09energy.html?_r=1

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is aiming to minimize the effects of sharply rising fuel prices and to beat its current goal for reducing emissions, under measures proposed on Tuesday, in part by requiring member governments to upgrade the energy efficiency of public buildings.

The plan, which also calls for making power grids and transportation systems more efficient, would require about 270 billion euros, or $375 billion, in annual investment, said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action. At the same time, the measures could reduce the bloc’s annual fuel bill by up to 320 billion euros, she said.
“As oil prices keep rising, Europe is paying more every year for its energy bill and becoming more vulnerable to price shocks,” Ms. Hedegaard said. “So starting the transition now will pay off.”
The goal, which is nonbinding, is for greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 to be 25 percent of their levels from 1990. That would go beyond the mandatory target for cutting emissions by 20 percent as agreed by European leaders two years ago. Europe is on track to meet that goal.
The efficiency measures still need the formal assent of member states and the European Parliament. Some industry groups said the measures would stimulate growth and employment.
The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, which includes the oil company Shell, the automaker Renault and the train builder Alstom, said that meeting the more ambitious, but nonbinding, goal of cutting emissions by 25 percent would help “create the investment climate needed to give the E.U. any chance of competing in the global competition for low-carbon prosperity.” Prince Charles lends his title and support to the group but does not finance it.
For others, the lack of a binding energy-efficiency target represented a fundamental flaw. And some environmental groups and lawmakers criticized the measures as insufficient to help industries better compete with Chinese manufacturing.
Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament, said the lack of a mandatory target “amounts to a betrayal of Europe’s interests.” He warned that “European development has been condemned to stay in the slow lane, certain to be overtaken by the fast-lane Asian economies.”
Ms. Hedegaard emphasized that the proposals should help Europe make a larger proportion of the reductions in emissions at home rather than through “offsetting,” or by paying developing countries to lower their emissions, in coming decades.
Offsetting was likely to become more expensive, and “it is not so wise to continue to pour lots of euros — billions of euros — into our competitors through the offsetting mechanisms in China, in India, in Brazil, instead of investing in making the transition in our own society and doing it in a way that makes us more competitive at the same time,” she said.
Last month, European governments reaffirmed the goal of improving efficiency by 20 percent by 2020. But they shied away from making it mandatory because of opposition from powerful industry groups.
Instead, the energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, who spoke alongside Ms. Hedegaard at a news conference Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, said the commission would present by this summer proposals for legal measures that would promote efficiency.
Those measures include requiring governments to renovate a minimum of 3 percent of public buildings each year to improve their energy performance, and requiring public spending on items like appliances and services like heating and cooling that meet “high standards” of energy efficiency. Because around 12 percent of the built area in Europe is in public hands, that implies a “very, very large number of buildings that will be retrofitted,” Mr. Oettinger said.
Some of the most far-reaching proposals concern energy companies. Under the plan, energy companies could be required to help customers cut energy consumption by supporting the installation of double-glazed windows and attic insulation.
The commission said it would review progress on energy efficiency in 2013 and if it found too little progress it would again consider proposing legally binding national targets.