Editorial

10 January 2008 - The year 2008 is still young, but it has already started in a promising way. For everyone who might have forgotten about the importance of sustainable energy growth, the oil market sent a reminder by surpassing the 100 dollar per barrel threshold on the very first day of trading. Maybe it's just symbolic, but after some days off, we're wide awake again.

There's a lot of work to be done. Within a few weeks we can expect a new framework proposal for climate and sustainable energy policies from the European Commission for the period 2010-2020. Meanwhile, we have to substantially speed up activities to meet the EU goals for 21% green power by 2010 – only two years away. If we don't, we will only achieve a lousy 19%, which has to be considered a bad start in the acceleration towards a 35% share of renewables in EU power by 2020.

The drafts of the plans for emissions trading and renewable energy that have been leaked to GreenPrices show good consistency with the plans launched exactly one year ago. However, these are still proposals, to be approved and confirmed by the Member States and the European Parliament.

Especially the targets per country – not mentioned in the drafts seen by GP – are potential sources for much discussion. In the last months Commissioners Dimas and Piebalgs have been travelling to European capitals to present the targets in a bilateral way. After the publication on 23 January, the complete list of target figures (both for renewables and greenhouse gas emissions) will be discussed publicly.

This public discussion really has some advantages. Firstly, every public statement about a target that has been set too high for one country will imply that the figures for other EU members are too low. Other countries won't like that. Moreover, government leaders can't afford to withdraw from earlier statements, because the press and the public will jump right upon them if they do. Every government in Europe has committed itself to tough climate goals. By committing to real target figures, they have to prove that this was not just lip service. With the 100 dollar oil price in mind, this is really a clever strategy.

All the best for 2008!

Rolf de Vos
Editor in chief
GreenPrices
r.devos@greenprices.com

Source: GP Newsdesk

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