Irish Regions Office Website

February 11, 2008

Action Plan for a Low Carbon Europe

On 23 January, the European Commission published a package of proposals aimed at tackling climate change and promoting the use of renewable energy.

The package includes five main elements: (1) A new Emissions Trading scheme (ETS): extending the current ETS dating from 2005 to cover all major industrial emitters such as power plants, and to include more greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide (fertilisers) and perfluorocarbons (aluminium); (2) national emissions allowances to achieve an average 10% reduction of greenhouse gases from sectors not covered by the ETS (transport, buildings, agriculture, waste) by 2020, with richer countries asked to make bigger cuts - of up to 20% in the case of Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg - while some poorer states will in fact be entitled to increase their emissions in these sectors [this issue is treated in more detail in an article in EU Policy Review’ No. 01/08 - available from the publications section of www.iro.ie] (3) legally binding renewable energy targets for each EU country on the increase of renewables in overall energy mix by 2020 - for Ireland the target is 16% which is up from an estimated 3.1% in 2005; (4) a Biofuels target of 10% in Europe's transport fuels by 2020; and (5) Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to be credited as not emitted under the ETS. The Commission expects the proposed package of measures to be adopted by the end of 2008. Further details at: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/climate_actions/doc/2008_res_directive_en.pdf

Posted by iroronan at February 11, 2008 12:54 PM