In September 2019, during the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged to phase out all coal-powered electricity production by 2028, making Greece a pioneer in the Balkans. This commitment is enshrined in the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) submitted by the Greek government to the European Commission end of 2019. The new government, in power since July 2019, revised the NECP and introduced more ambitious climate and energy targets (see blogpost on NECP). Daniel Argyropoulos has the details.
All posts tagged: renewable energies
Silver bullet or Trojan Horse: Clean Hydrogen poses as much promise as pitfall
Heralded as the missing puzzle piece within a fully decarbonized economy, the European Commission has determined clean hydrogen is the 21st Century solution to arresting climate change. Published in July, their new Hydrogen Strategy is also a jobs plan and pathway towards unifying the EU around a holistic energy and economic policy. But despite being framed as a green energy program, there’s a growing realization that the transition will be dirtier than expected. For the short term at least, the plan rests heavily on using fossil gas as “a bridge fuel” once again. L. Michael Buchsbaum reports in the first of a series on the evolving hydrogen revolution.
Community Energy Projects Face Obstacles Despite New EU Directives
Fresh EU directives have spurred new legislation across the EU to expand citizen-owned energy projects. But collective renewables still bump up against the powerful forces of traditional utilities, grid operators, and conventional energy interests. Paul Hockenos gives us the details.
Lunch with Mr. Energiewende: Rainer Baake is Back in Berlin
Rainer Baake, 64-years old, is a veteran renewable energy politico with roots that stretch back deep into the earliest days of Germany’s renewables movement and the Greens. In March 2018, Baake left the Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy (BMWi), where he headed up the energy portfolio, with a resounding bang. Since then, he’s travelled around the world shooting a film about climate change. Not one to fade away, he’s got a new think tank up and running called Stiftung Klimaneutralität, or the Climate Neutrality Foundation. Paul Hockenos recently met Mr. Baake for lunch.
Biden’s climate plans
Presumptive Democratic party presidential candidate Joe Biden has released an ambitious $2 trillion energy and climate plan that will, if implemented, create not only millions of well-paying jobs, but place the nation on a mid-century carbon neutrality pathway. Calling for a massive investment in solar and wind capacity, Biden aims for a coal exit and elimination of carbon pollution by 2035. More than just an energy and climate platform, Biden’s plan reckons with ensuring a just transition for affected coal and gas producing regions, while directing support towards impacted poor and minority regions so often in the smokestack shadows. Far from perfect, Biden’s plan would at least begin to stop the world’s top polluter from taking us all over the climate cliff.
The IEA Won’t Budge: Fossil fuels, nuclear, and carbon capture remain key to innovation strategies
Despite so much criticism directed at the International Energy Agency (IEA) over the years, the Paris-based intergovernmental organization, which was established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1974, refuses to seriously rethink its affinity to fossil fuels and nuclear power – and its timid embrace of renewables.
Hydrogen…yet again
After much anticipation, the European Commission introduced ‘A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe’ to pave the way for “the missing link in the energy transition. This was prompted by an understanding that an energy transition reliant solely on electricity as an energy carrier will not allow the EU to decarbonise its entire energy system. This has ushered in the Commission’s second attempt to facilitate the diffusion of the energy carrier, following its launch of a high level group on hydrogen in 2003 – to little avail. However, this time the reinvigoration of the fuel just might be right. John Szabo takes a look
Germany’s losing renewable jobs
The goal of 500,000 people employed in the renewable energy sector moves further out of reach every year. The trend is now embedding in wider reports of “environmental jobs,” not reported separately. Craig Morris takes a look.
EU recovery plan goes green and excludes nuclear
On 27 May the European Commission (EC) put forward its proposal for a major post-Covid-19 recovery plan. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that what underpinned the programme was a determination “to hold governments more accountable for fighting climate change and saving our nature.” David Lowry explores what this means for the continent’s climate policy and the role of nuclear energy.
Mexico’s strange corona response: putting a brake on energy transition
Mexico’s government has had a bad corona run. The pandemic hit the country when the economy was already shrinking. But instead of profiting from the resulting drop in electricity demand of 9 percent in order to speed up the expansion of renewables and the much needed modernization of his country’s energy sector, President Lopez Obrador – widely referred to as AMLO – is instead sticking to the country’s outdated and failing CO2-heavy energy system. Rebecca Bertram takes a look.