Page 34 - European Energy Innovation - spring 2018 publication

34 Spring 2018 European Energy Innovation

BIO-ECONOMY

Bio-economy – a tool to deliver
ambitious climate policy

By Miapetra Kumpula-Natri MEP

Tackling climate change is
nowadays an all familiar
part of the agenda of
governments, companies,
NGOs and increasingly a guiding
principle in our day-to-day decisions
of grocery shopping and travel
arrangements. But what does it mean
to really put climate efforts first?
To actually deliver a carbon-free
economy? That is something policy-
makers around the world still try to
grasp.

The European Union has had climate
change at the centre of its policy
targets for a long time. Longer than
most countries and policy-making
bodies. But even for the EU, new
challenges were presented by
the adoption of the Paris Climate
Agreement in 2015. The Union’s
response has been to beef up
set targets for energy efficiency,
renewables and overall emissions
reductions. This was put in to practice
by the presentation of the so called
Clean Energy Package by the
European Commission late 2016.

In the European Parliament, we have
tried to improve, preserve and slightly
steer the Commissions ambitious
agenda. On energy efficiency the
Parliament has already agreed
with Council to tackle the energy
performance of buildings (a Directive I
had the privilege to follow as a shadow
rapporteur for my group, the Socialists
& Democrats).But more battles will
be fought on the levels of renewable
targets (Parliament’s 35% vs Council’s
27%) and the target for energy
efficiency (where again Parliament has
set its sights higher with a 35% binding
target).

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