Newsbytes: EU Commission Abandons Binding Renewables Target

… But Agrees New Unilateral CO2 Target For 2030

The European Union set out new climate and energy goals for 2030 on Wednesday, proposing less stringent targets than in the past in a reflection of tougher economic circumstances and a desire to limit rising energy costs. –Charlie Dunmore, Reuters, 22 January 2014

Today is a big day in Brussels as the EU has begun the gradual process of rolling back its bankrupting climate and green energy policies. Of course this modest climbdown is not the end of Europe’s climate hysteria that has dominated Brussels for 20 years. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the beginning of a much deeper retreat of its unilateral approach in coming years. –Benny Peiser, 22 January 2014

The European Commission is to ditch legally-binding renewable energy targets after 2020 in a major U-turn and admission that the policy has failed industry and consumers by driving up electricity bills. The climbdown on setting mandatory national targets, enforced in the EU courts, will be welcomed by Britain, which argued to allow countries to keep the choice of how best to reduce CO2 emissions as a matter of national sovereignty. –Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2014

The European Commission has outlined its plans for climate and energy policy until 2030. The Commissioners want a binding target to reduce carbon emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. Renewables will need to provide 27% of EU energy by 2030, but while the target will be binding at EU level there will be no mandatory targets for member states. The policy proposals are subject to review by heads of government. –Matt McGrath, BBC News, 22 January 2014

As country after country abandons, curtails or reneges on once-generous support for renewable energy, Europe is beginning to realise that its green energy strategy is dying on the vine. Green dreams are giving way to hard economic realities. The result of a fear-driven gamble with the continent’s industrial future is a costly shambles that threatens to undercut Europe’s economic and political position in a world that is sensibly refusing to follow its lead. –Benny Peiser, The Australian, 10 August 2013

Europe must get a grip on energy prices to protect growth and stop its industry from fleeing abroad, according to two top policy makers. German companies and consumers are shouldering costs of as much as 24 billion euros ($32 billion) a year for clean-energy aid, the country’s Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the same event. Europe’s biggest economy has reached “the limit” with renewables subsidies and must contain power prices or risk “deindustrialization,” he said. –Stefan Nicola and Tino Andresen, Bloomberg, 21 January 2014

It is essential that Brussels does not impose binding targets on the proportion of energy that each state must generate through renewables. This will force consumers to subsidise relatively inefficient technologies and will push up energy prices. That is something Europe does not need. —Editorial, Financial Times, 21 January 2014

The closure of Aluminium Delfzijl – the last remaining smelter in the Netherlands – last year is not going to be the last, according to Citicorp’s David Wilson. The smelter announced it was going into bankruptcy after the owners failed to negotiate a new low-cost energy deal. “There’s no reason to produce aluminium in Europe,” and “production in Europe will fall to 2 million tons this year, the lowest since 1971,” Wilson predicted, with smelters in Spain and Germany under the greatest threat.—Metal Miner, 22 January 2014

Germany must reduce the cost of its switch from atomic energy toward renewables to protect growth, Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. German companies and consumers shoulder as much as 24 billion euros ($32 billion) a year for renewables because of subsidy payments, Gabriel told an energy conference in Berlin. “I don’t know any other economy that can bear this burden,” Gabriel said today. –Stefan Nicola and Tino Andresen, Bloomberg, 21 January 2014

Green taxes on energy bills will more than double by the end of the decade, despite a promise by David Cameron to “roll back” the charges, according to one of Britain’s biggest suppliers. Tariffs to fund wind turbines and solar panels will drive the average gas and electricity bill towards £1,500 a year by 2020, npower says. In a report published today, npower says that the cost of green levies will fall only temporarily after the Government’s decision last month to remove some environmental tariffs from bills. –Tim Webb, The Times, 22 January 2014

Why is employment growth so slow in Europe? Energy-intensive industries, like steel and chemicals, are not creating jobs in Europe. They’re going to the United States and other bits of the planet where natural gas and electricity prices – the two are linked – are much cheaper. – Eric Reguly, The Globe and Mail, 21 January 2014

h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser of The GWPF