Going for Green Growth: The case for ambitious and immediate EU low carbon action
Presents the economic and strategic case for ambitious and immediate EU low carbon action
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The Green Growth Group is an informal grouping of like-minded energy, climate and environment Ministers from 13 EU Member States: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia and Estonia.
The Group is working together with a view to exploring, promoting and pursuing a cost-effective and growth-enhancing ambitious EU low carbon agenda. As part of their work, the Group has published this Joint Pamphlet entitled ‘Going for Green Growth’ which sets out the case for why the EU needs to take ambitious and immediate low carbon action. The pamphlet covers:
- The latest scientific evidence of man-made climate change and its impacts on the EU economy and society;
- Barriers to urgently needed European low carbon energy investments, especially the lack of long-term EU level policy certainty and weak investment signals from the EU ETS;
- The risk to Europe’s energy security and how to reverse the EU’s rapidly growing dependency on fossil fuel imports from increasingly risky or unstable parts of the world;
- The economics of decarbonisation and why it is essential not to delay decisions and ambitious action;
- The importance of preserving and strengthening EU competitiveness during our decarbonisation process, such as through energy efficiency measures and targeted support to those industries that may need support based on sound analysis of carbon leakage risks;
- The opportunities to substantially lower decarbonisation costs through integrating energy markets, boosting competition, expanding carbon trading and reforming the EU ETS;
- The opportunities from the dramatic growth in the global low carbon economy in recent years and the challenges of increasing international low carbon business competition;
- The jobs, growth and wider health and other co-benefits from ambitious low carbon action.
The Pamphlet concludes with a call for three priority EU actions: 1. Agree an ambitious EU 2030 Energy and Climate Policy Framework; 2. Reform the Structure of the EU’s Emissions Trading System; 3. Ensure the EU is in a position to put an ambitious emissions reduction offer on the table at the Ban Ki-Moon-hosted World Leaders’ Climate Summit in autumn 2014.
This document is intended to provide a useful contribution to the policy debate on the EU 2030 framework for climate and energy policies, reform of the EU ETS and EU leadership in the UNFCCC.