The European Parliament last week voted by a large majority for a resolution calling for further sanctions against Russia, as well as for an amendment for a complete and immediate EU embargo on imports of Russian oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas.
EU-ASE president Monica Frassoni was interviewed on this topic on the morning programme of Radio24, Italy’s leading business radio station.
The podcast is available here (in Italian)
On 9 November the Financial Times published in its print edition a letter by the president of the European Alliance to Save Energy, Monica Frassoni.
Stepping up building energy renovations offers a solution to the issue of soaring energy bills, yet this is overlooked by decision makers, the letter says.
Today, which energy efficient technologies, it is possible to reduce buildings’ energy needs for heating and cooling by 60%. Still the average renovation rate of the EU’s building stock remains under 1% per year.
With over 34m people living in energy poverty, we are playing with fire, the letter continues. Energy efficiency is a rational, cost-effective and systemic solution for the energy price surge.
Read the full letter here
The letter can also be found on the FT website.
EU-ASE president Monica Frassoni was interviewed by Debating Europe as part of the debate How can we make Europe’s buildings more energy-efficient?, organised in cooperation with the Climate Pact. During the interview, she replied to the questions sent by European citizens on the topic.
Watch the debate How can we make Europe’s buildings more energy efficient?
Debating Europe is a project of Friends of Europe. It hosts a successful online discussion platform based on a simple model: citizens ask questions, policymakers and experts respond. Since launching, it has built a 6 million strong community of citizens and a social media following of over 271,000 people from across Europe. To date, a selection of 180,000 questions has been put to over 3000 key policymakers and experts.
by Bertrand Deprez, Vice-President EU Government Affairs at Schneider Electric and board member of the European Alliance to Save Energy, & Céline Carré, Head of European Public Affairs at Saint-Gobain, a member of the European Alliance to Save Energy.
This is no secret: with more than 38% of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, buildings represent one of the largest bulk of decarbonisation. And with 40% of energy consumption, they can even lead the energy efficiency race. However, so far, the efforts deployed at the European and national levels to accelerate the renovation of the buildings stock have not been sufficient to drive their long-term decarbonisation. If we want this to change, and to make highly efficient buildings in a fully decarbonised and connected energy system a reality, three levers should be activated simultaneously.
First, aligning hearts and minds around the unique contribution of buildings can happen via the joint revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, Energy Efficiency Directive and Renewable Energy Directive. The Renovation Wave strategy has set the direction, but specific milestones and acceleration points now need to take shape. Among those are minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) on existing buildings, a tool to drive demand for renovation. Such MEPS should be deployed for first movers segments, such as non-residential and worst-performing residential buildings particularly affected by soaring energy prices. Then, new and existing buildings should be made fit for our 2050 carbon neutrality goals. In this journey, better accounting for reflecting emissions reduction potentials from new buildings and major renovations, on top of energy savings, will also help coordinate and align actions, especially when it comes to boosting the uptake of both energy efficiency measures and renewables, such as directly electrified solutions powered by renewables.
Second, unleashing new business models to finance and roll out renovations will ensure that the ambition is fulfilled. Deploying renovation and recovery is a combined challenge of preparedness and speed. The construction sector is getting ready with new approaches enabling to renovate faster and better. We need more innovators and integrators to plug these new business models together with available finance. The implementation of the post Covid-19 national recovery plans is a unique opportunity to fill the gap in this field.
Including buildings in an emissions trading scheme will have a limited impact on emissions and should, at most, complement other measures like substantially increasing renovation rates, switching to renewables and phasing out fossil fuels subsidies, writes on Euractiv Monica Frassoni, president of the European Alliance to Save Energy.
On 14 July, the European Commission unveiled its long-awaited roadmap to reach the European Union’s higher emissions reduction target for 2030, the so-called “Fit for 55” package.
No wonder it chose the day traditionally celebrating the French revolution as the scope and ambitions of this massive legislative package are considerable. With it, came the proposal of setting up a parallel Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for road transport and heating fuels, certainly one of the most contentious measures of the package.
According to the Commission, this proposal aims to address the lack of emissions reductions in road transport and buildings, which together account for almost 60% of EU emissions. Over the last few years, emissions from the building sector have not decreased significantly, while those from road transport have even increased.
The need to act fast and with concrete steps to reduce emissions in these sectors is clear. So seems the Commission’s logic behind the proposal: if the ETS brought emissions down in the energy sector, why wouldn’t it be the case for buildings and road transport?
There are a few reasons why carbon pricing in buildings could at best complement, but not replace – and should not distract from – policies and incentives to substantially increase renovation rates, switch to renewables and phase out fossil fuels subsidies.