On February 7, 2012, the European Commission together with the Danish presidency of the European Council organized a high level stakeholder conference on the Energy Roadmap 2050.
The Alcide de Gasperi auditorium in the Commission's Charlemagne building, seating a nice 450 people, was entirely filled for the keynote speeches in the morning, with a number of people even attending the live stream in an additional room, in order to be able to follow the conference on the screen (with translations). Apparently the beau monde of the European energy field was eager to discuss ideas and listen to opinions from a nice line-up of speakers. They were not disappointed, some firm opinions were ventured indeed.
Energy commissioner Oettinger ventured his believe in the market (read: carbon pricing) as an instrument to foster renewables penetration, but at the same time called for a broad discussion on new milestones for 2030 on carbon emissions, energy efficiency and renewables. For the latter, Oettinger doesn't want to rule out binding legislation in case they aren't able to compete fairly on the price with fossil fuels.
Remarkably, Oettinger expressed some scepticism about the future of biofuels, and more specifically the 10% renewables target in transport. Biofuels are suffering from a lack of public acceptance and sustainability, mostly because the space needed to grow the necessary crops is lost for agriculture. The commissioner didn't drag into doubt the current 2020 policies on the subject, but called for a defensive attitude in discussing new policies beyond that point. It's an at least unusual posititon that the commissioner took there, in comparison to the Commission's previous stance on biofuels.
A very noticed speech came from Johannes Teyssen, the CEO of E.ON, who sharply criticized the European Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS). The system in its current form entirely misses its purpose and gives no incentives at all to reduce emissions, with an explicit price per megaton for carbon allowances that is estimated to be ten times lower than the actual cost. On top of that the implicit carbon prices from support schemes lead to inefficient allocation of emissions, with investments going into areas with large subsidies rather than cheaper options for carbon abatement. His message to the policy makers: fix it or abandon it.
Another dissident voice was from Dieter Helm, who chaired the independent advisory group that the Commission installed to get a "second opinion" about the RM 2050. Mr. Helm rebutted the assertion that higher fossil fuel prices would foster the development of (expensive) renewable technologies. To the contrary, Mr. Helm believes that gas prices will rise in the long term as a result of their unbundling from the oil price and the development of shale gas resources in Eastern Europe.
In the afternoon, breaking groups on different topics (energy efficiency, infrastructure and market design) resulted into some conclusions and recommendations that were summarized by the respective moderators, followed by round-up conclusions from Danish energy minister Martin Lidegaard.
Mr. Lidegaard reaffirmed commitment to the 2020 targets and spotted consensus about the need to (at least) think about and discuss milestones or targets for 2030. He identified as key messages of the day, inter alia, the need for an adequate financial framework, financing mechanisms and the right incentives for investments in infrastructure and energy efficiency (including a working ETS), completion of the internal market for energy, more coordination on EU level for renewable support schemes and more money for RTD.
Quite some food for discussion, and that is exactly what the RM 2050 is supposed to bring about.
The entire conference was recorded on video and can be rewatched. The video covering and other materials (including the programme, speaker biographies etc.) can be found under the following link:
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