EU energy and climate strategy: “20-20-20” target - part II - KEP energy Magazine - KEP energy

The “20-20-20 Package” is the first deep widespread action carried out from the EU in the climate and energy fields. It originates from the complex and controversial topic of the climate change. Climate change means a series of meteorological, biological, geographical observations that, in combination among them, show a global drift of the natural ecosystems equilibrium. The majority of the international scientific community indicates the anthropic activities as the fundamental reason of the climate change. The EU is in agreement with this perspective.

The climate change, its effects and its consequences, are currently widespread debated topics. Is not aim of this paper contribute to this debate. So, in the following is considered only the point of view expressed from the EU.

The carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric concentration is one of the main parameters to assess the climate change. The CO2 is a greenhouse gas that hampers the reradiation to the cosmos of the sun energy reflected or absorbed and reradiated from the earth surface. The greenhouse effect generates an increase of the earth surface global average temperature. For this reason, the CO2 has been detected as greenhouse gas. During the 1960-2015 period has been observed a 30% increase of the CO2 atmospheric concentration, and its trend shows as probable a further increase. It is estimated that the CO2 generates about two-thirds of the global warming due to anthropic activities. One of the main sources of the CO2 emission in atmosphere is the fossil fuels burn, whilst the deforestation reduces the natural ecosystem ability to storage CO2 in the plants. The nexus between fossil fuels burn and CO2 atmospheric concentration increase is evident considering that during the 1950-2000 period the fossil fuels consumption is increased about 300%.

The global action for the GHG emissions cut has as fundamental commitment the Kyoto Protocol. It regulates the emissions of six chemical compounds: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.

The global average temperature of the earth surface is increased of 0,85 °C from the beginning of XIX century. The GHG emissions due to anthropic activities are the main reason of the global warming. The awareness of the risk due to the global warming induced the international community to set as limit a 2 °C increase respect to the global average temperature during the 1850-1990 period. However currently, if does not take place drastic measures for GHG emissions cut, the temperature increase could reach 5 °C by the end of XXI century.

Some evident consequences of the global warming are the glaciers melting, the sea level rising and the extreme meteorological occurrences. These occurrences produce direct dangers for the population health and safety, whilst the properties and infrastructures damages force high societal and economic costs. Under the natural ecosystems perspective, the climate change happens so fast that many animal and vegetable species have adaptation problems. It is estimates that a warming ranging 1,5 – 2,5 °C beyond the current temperature could expose in extinction danger about 20 – 30% of the animal and vegetable species.

The actions carried out from the European Commission are aimed to transform the EU in a high energy efficiency and low carbon intensity economy. The main topics of the EU strategy are:

- EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS);

- action in the RES sector;

- action in the building and industrial products energy efficiency sector;

- action in the vehicles CO2 emissions sector;

- Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) of the CO2 emissions produced from power plants and industrial plants.

As financial support measure, almost 20% of 960 euro billions budgeted during the 2014-2020 period will expend in actions related to the climate change.

The EU action in the climate and energy fields is structured in three sequential phases, having different time horizons:

- 2020 Package;

- 2030 Framework;

- 2050 Roadmap.

In the following paragraphs, the most relevant aspects of these phases are described, in order to focus the “20-20-20” targets within a wide strategic and programmatic vision.