Sustainable paths for EU increased climate and energy ambition

September, 28, 2020

On October, 12 the Enel Foundation’s study “Sustainable paths for EU increased climate and energy ambition”, carried out in partnership with Compass Lexecon and Enerdata will be presented by Fabien Roques, Executive Vice President and Head of the European Energy practice at Compass-Lexecon. There will be an online debate, “The European 2030 Climate Target Plan – how to reconcile ambitious emissions reductions with industrial competitiveness”, where Simone Mori, member of Enel Foundation’s scientific committee and Executive Vice President, Head of Europe, at Enel, will be one of the contributors.

The European Green Deal aims to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent. To this end, the Commission intends to increase the EU’s 2030 target for greenhouse gas emission reductions to -55% compared to 1990 levels. Revising the current 2030 target upwards puts us on a more gradual pathway towards becoming climate-neutral by 2050. It also helps to pace and focus transition efforts from now until 2050 and ensure EU’s leadership role in addressing global challenges in a sustainable way.

The study leverages a unique combined modelling approach able to address both the entire energy sector covering the full EU economy and the power sector in a granular way. It offers a fact-based analysis to assess how more ambitious decarbonisation objectives can be reached in Europe thanks to cost reduction and recent technological progress both on the supply and demand side, evaluating the role of the power sector as a key enabler of deep decarbonisation and estimate the impact on costs of an increased decarbonisation ambition on an aggregated and sectoral basis. The study shows that increased ambition in 2030 is achievable, affordable and necessary to achieve net zero emissions in 2050.

The German EU Presidency is expected to reach an agreement on this by the end of 2020, even though the tightening of the CO2 reduction target for 2030 has a very far-reaching impact on the German and European economy and might distort the international competitiveness of companies based in the EU.

The event on October, 12 is organized by the Economic Council of CDU and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Europe, and will be attended by Mauro Petriccione, Director general DG CLIMA, European Commission; Claudia Dörr-Vob, State Secretary, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs & Energy; Simone Mori; Dr Markus Pieper, MEP (EPP Germany) ITRE, European Parliament.

Dr Hardy Ostry (KAS) and Burkhard Ober (Wirtschaftsrat der CDU e.V.) will moderate the session.

Simone Mori commented: “This study shows that the technological progress in renewable energy and batteries, combined with the electrification of end uses will make the increased ambition in 2030 feasible with no extra costs for the consumers. The power sector will be instrumental to reach this goal, provided that effective EU policies are in place”.

Fabien Roques added: “Our modelling shows that increased climate ambition is possible and affordable thanks to cost reduction and recent technological progress, and sheds lights on the pivotal role of the power sector in this transition”.

Read more in the Executive Summary of the study here and in the Final Report here.