Europe needs a fresh approach to climate strategy

In Europe the debate about a new strategy to tackle climate change is beginning. The current EU climate strategy – the 2050 Low-Carbon Roadmap of 2011 – needs to be replaced. Its level of ambition (-80% by 2050) is not any more in in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which calls for net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.

‘Investors might adopt a wait-and-see approach, instead of massively investing into new low-carbon alternatives, as they know that individual policies can be quickly reversed’

What is more, the economic, political and technological environments have changed markedly since 2011. Emission levels today are lower than expected in 2011. The failure of centralised energy and climate policy-making from Brussels has led to the emergence of a new governance framework – the Energy Union – that acknowledges the key role of member states. And while some low-carbon technologies such as batteries and solar panels have massively exceeded expectations of seven years ago, the contribution of other technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) currently appear to be insufficient to the long-term goal of decarbonisation.

Read the story by Andrei Marcu and Georg Zachmann from energypost - “Europe needs a fresh approach to climate strategy.”