“Lack of Commitment” Threatens Europe’s Net Zero Progress

Essay by Eric Worrall

What a surprise – European climate zealot politicians are not practicing what they are preaching.

EU Policy. Lack of commitment threatens bloc’s climate-neutrality target

By Marta Pacheco & Robert Hodgson
Published on 03/01/2024 – 13:26•Updated 13:51

With the European Commission expected to announce next month a radical new 2040 target for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, there are worrying signs that governments are struggling to meet existing commitments.

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Member states are already struggling to meet the 2030 targets for energy savings, renewable energy use, and overall emissions reduction at the core of the EU’s contribution to the global effort. During the same environment ministers’ gathering in December, the Commission published a damning assessment of national climate and energy plans (NECPs) submitted to date.

With all the planned measures combined, the bloc looked set to fall short of all three targets for the end of this decade, which require roughly doubling the share of renewables such as wind and solar in the EU’s energy mix to 42.5% while cutting overall energy use by 11.7% on the way to slashing net emissions by 55% compared to 1990.

Moreover, despite an end-of-June deadline, only 21 member states had submitted draft plans by mid-November, a scenario that has significantly compromised the process of assessing their combined impact, according to the Commission. The executive’s appraisal points to shortcomings on several fronts, including EU countries’ performance on reducing national annual emissions.

Current measures would lead to a reduction of 51%, four points short of the 2030 target, the Commission found. As for renewable energy in the mix, current drafts show that EU countries are on track to reach a share of around 39% by 2030. For energy efficiency the picture is much worse: the plans submitted by mid-November imply a 5.8% reduction in energy demand, just half of the EU target.

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Read more: https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/01/03/eu-policy-weak-performance-threatens-blocs-climate-neutrality-target

As WUWT reported recently, it could be a lot worse than Euronews is letting on. The German Renewable Energy sector is on the brink of collapse.

As far as I can tell, the core problem is too much economic activity has been outsourced to low cost centres like China, including the manufacture of renewable energy components. Chinese manufacturing costs are lower than Europe, because China uses cheap coal power and possibly also uses slave labor to manufacture energy intensive solar panels and wind turbine components. But the European economy is doing so badly that Chinese prices have risen relative to the European economy, to the extent that European companies are struggling to afford Chinese imports. This in turn is triggering job losses and severe slowdowns in Europe’s green energy sector.

What about manufacturing green energy components in Europe instead of importing from China? Europe has so far failed to replace Chinese imports with their own manufactured products, because manufacturing solar panels and wind turbine components is energy intensive. European energy is too expensive to competitively manufacture green energy components, even in the context of rising import prices. Arguably German green energy is too expensive for any kind of manufacturing, German industrial production is currently suffering a severe contraction, likely caused by disruption of Russian gas supplies, and the complete failure of renewable energy to fill the hole left by the withdrawal of Russian energy.

Germany may receive some energy price relief in 2024, though not from renewables. Norway has agreed to supply enough gas to replace what Germany used to import from Russia. But Norway has other customers like Britain who are also desperate for Norwegian gas, so it’s likely the price Germany pays for Norwegian gas will likely be higher than what Russia used to charge.

The Chinese economy is also unravelling, but for a different reason. The Chinese housing sector is collapsing, and that collapse is threatening to drag down the entire Chinese economy. Structural problems such as a local government debt crisis, from excessive debts incurred by ambitious local politicians desperate to meet communist central government growth targets, and the close tie between local government finances and income from housing development land sales, are also weighing on the Chinese economy.

There may be a sliver of opportunity for Germany in 2024, Norwegian gas may revive hopes of local manufacture of energy intensive renewable components. But China’s economic woes won’t last forever. Whatever happens to German manufacturing, the continued European dependence on fossil fuel, and the complete failure of renewables to deliver a viable end to end renewable based economy, which includes extraction, manufacture and replacement of renewable components all powered by an entirely renewable energy based supply chain, speaks volumes about Europe’s structural failure to hit its climate targets.