European climate agenda
PEN interviews the head of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), Jos Delbeke, on the work being done to confront the climate challenge
Europe has long been a leader on addressing climate change, with the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) leading the European Commission’s efforts to confront it in Europe and around the world. With the landmark Paris Climate Agreement being signed at the UN in April of this year, the commission has called for swift ratification to confront the common challenge of climate change that mankind faces.
Leading DG CLIMA is Jos Delbeke, who on 23 May was a key speaker during a European Policy Centre policy dialogue; ‘De-carbonising the economy – The ICT factor’. Sitting down with PEN on the sidelines of the event, Delbeke provided an insight on EU activity and work taking place in the area, detailing how Brussels and the EU is translating the ambitions under the Paris agreement into concrete action, taking forward work on climate change.
While Europe has been doing well in meeting its climate targets, some have called for more ambitious goals. Given how well Europe has done so far, how is the DG working to move forward in the area?
What we have to do as a first task is to put into legislation the goals that were fixed or agreed by consensus by the heads of state under the European Council. How much we may see as regards scope for more ambition here or there, the preparatory work that we are doing today with all players, and not least with member states, indicates the scope for additional work that we can pursue.
So legislation first and foremost, once that is finalised, then we can look at the evidence and see how much the new realities are kicking in. While oil prices are down today, they may be higher in the future. Other countries are doing a lot of work on climate action, and over time we are seeing technology evolving. The first priority at the DG is to develop the legislation based on what the heads of state have decided. Once that process is complete, we can prepare the ground for the next step; and that approach is exactly in line with what was agreed in the Paris agreement.
Under the agreement, we have a five-year review cycle. So the first part of the cycle is to adopt our legislation, implement the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions [national commitments to post-2020 climate actions]. For us, the implementation of the INDCs is the adopting of EU climate legislation, so as to be sure we deliver those targets.
In terms of renewable energy, Europe has done very well in rolling out such forms of energy generation. But much of European energy generation is still reliant upon traditional fossil fuels. Considering the greening of these forms of energy through technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) what are the commission’s work priorities here?
On CCS we would be very prepared to do much more and we have the dedicated funding in place. What we saw was that the private sector was not following through with projects. While there may be good news out there and it is a technology that we are going to need in the future; the bulky sum that is necessary to have this carbon capture and storage rolled out in private industry has become a major hurdle.
Collecting the €500m, or even up to €1bn or more, that is needed to build such a working facility of course represents quite lot of money, particularly when you compare the cost of CCS to renewables and consider that a form of renewable energy, be it a windmill or solar panel, renewables appear much more attractive. That is why when it comes to CCS we are ready to play ball; but we cannot play ball on our own. It should also be a private operator putting some risky capital aside to invest alongside our funds.
In terms of trying to address risk around CCS and make investment more attractive, is there the scope to bring in the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) to take better account of innovation happening in the area?
This could be. The ETS is already proving to be a strong help when it comes to coal or lignite electricity production. Combined with CCS, that would make the case for coal or lignite production quite significant, not only in the short but also in the long-term.
© Camille King
In terms of the wider financial streams to try and promote innovation around climate action, could existing EU schemes such as the Horizon 2020 framework programme or the European Fund for Strategic Investments play a greater role to drive forward investment and innovation?
Exactly, and we also have an innovation fund as part of the ETS. We are looking into ways that we can use that money in line with the Juncker fund and European Investment Bank. This will help them roll out interesting projects and cover the risk factor. Indeed, we are still seeing the private investors coming forward with their investment proposals.
In the wake of the Paris agreement, how has the way the commission goes about its business in terms of the climate agenda changed? Has it energised your work here? Has it been a game changer?
It has, and actually when it comes to mainstreaming climate policy it is the Paris agreement that makes a tremendous difference in two or three respects. For example, the work we are now doing with DG AGRI on agriculture and forestry is very new, not that we weren’t talking with them in the past, but it’s now much more operational in what we should be doing in terms of policy and action.
For example, with DG Energy, we are looking much more closely at energy transport issues; also we are working with DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) on investment and economic issues. One further element where we are increasing works is over international support. The partnership agreements that we at DG CLIMA are signing, the European External Action Service are signing, our colleagues in DG Development and Cooperation are signing, underline this. I think our standard of having a climate and energy clause in our international co-operation agreements is significant. This is an area where the Paris agreement has changed work for the better quite significantly.
It’s no longer a question of if we should be involved in climate action, but what should we be bringing to the issue. The question over the climate has dropped, and we are seeing clear ambitions being made under the G7 and G20; this is really a game changer.
Is it important to link in climate action to the Sustainable Development Goals?
That should facilitate work tremendously indeed. We have always worked like that but, since Paris, there has been the recognition that we have these ambitious targets that we have to act on and have more mainstream work, making it necessary to review our traditional policies, all to a much more significant degree than what was happening before.
Jos Delbeke
Director-General
The Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA)
European Commission
http://ec.europa.eu/clima
