Assessment of energy efficiency objectives in the European Union

Abstract

The 2010 Europe 2020 EU climate change strategy identifies a number of key objectives related to climate change and energy: that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions should be decreased by 20% by 2020 as compared to 1990 levels; that 20% of energy should be produced from renewable sources and that efficiency of energy consumption should be increased by 20%. In reality, however, European Parliament negotiations – which ended on 13 June 2012 and which consolidated the goals of this mandatory directive – only agreed on the objective of achieving a 17% increase in energy efficiency by 2020. The good news is that some of the biggest comsumers of energy – the armies of EU Member States – are required to support the implementation of these tasks and strive to meet these targets, despite them being less ambitious than initial goals