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More effort needed to hit EU’s green targets

The European Union will miss its 2020 targets for renewable energy unless extra efforts are made, according to an expert report for the European Commission. The paper was written by the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, for the Commission’s Directorate General for Energy and Transport. It said that given current programmes, laws and policies, the share of primary energy consumption met by renewables would rise far more slowly than planned – to 8 per cent in 2010, and 10 per cent in 2020, far short of the 20 per cent target. It is set to grow slowly to 12 per cent in 2030. The report concluded: “Achieving the 20 per cent renewables target for 2020 will require a substantial additional effort compared with baseline developments, which includes only those measures implemented in the member states by the end of 2006.” These “baseline developments” include new and existing initiatives such as support for renewables (including the various electricity directives and the biofuels directive), energy efficiency rules and guidelines, carbon capture and storage initiatives, the Emissions Trading Scheme and others. The report also warned that Europe’s dependence on energy imports would increase dramatically under existing policies, reaching 67 per cent in 2030, up 14 per cent from today. Oil import dependence would rise to 95 per cent and gas to 84 per cent. Part of the reason was a drop in nuclear generation. Its share of energy consumption would fall from 14 per cent in 2005 to 13 per cent in 2010, and 10 per cent by 2030.

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