Energy RDI plan revealed
The European Commission has announced a new Energy Union research strategy at COP21.
Brussels said it was urging an ‘irreversible’ move to decarbonisation and also encouraging the start of a low-carbon innovation race at the talks in the Paris, where the EU hopes to take the lead through R&I.
The ‘Research, Innovation and Competitiveness Strategy of the Energy Union’ will be launched in 2016 and aims to ensure public support for innovative low-carbon technology, as well as backing for the development of the right policy environment to stimulate innovation and competition.
The plan will also include an ‘open science – open innovation’ scheme to help realise decarbonisation by 2050. The Commission sees the low-carbon transition as not only concerning the energy sector, but rather society as a whole.
Commenting, European Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas said: “Our view is that investment in energy research and innovation is still far too low. It is now time for swift and co-ordinated action. To make low and inconsistent public and private investment in European energy research and innovation is a thing of the past.”
The Commission hopes to build and deepen the EU’s knowledge on feasible post-2030 decarbonisation pathways and their implications, as well as create a public discourse informed by science and broadly discussed with stakeholders.
Moedas will chair a high-level board steering the initiative, bringing together academics, businesspeople and society representatives. The panel includes Lord Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, Professor Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Peter Bakker, president and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The EU is expected to invest at least 35% of funding under Horizon 2020 into climate-related activities.
