The implementation of renewable energies - an inevitable plan of action if you want to continue sight-seeing in Amsterdam by foot – is a delicate matter. As reported in our latest phase report, the thing we don’t want to do is to scare our companies away and demolishing our economies, because frankly (or perhaps sadly) money makes the world go round. Therefore, the approach has to be gradual and universal. It’s no longer an issue to deal with on national scale, nor European, for that matter. What has been happening the last couple of decades, is that big companies like Philips and PSA Peugeot Citroën are outsourcing their practises and activities to developing countries. We won’t be elaborating on this, as that would be a repetition of the last report, but the fact is, that if policies aren’t integrated worldwide, companies are just going to go somewhere else, dragging their polluting chimneys with them and largely nullifying the aimed effect of the political measure itself. It even means that smaller companies, the major provider of jobs within countries, suffer because they do not have the means to just move their facilities around, leading to another economic malaise and massive loss of jobs. On the other hand, it has to be said that many African companies and farms nowadays use renewable energy for their production, because many development programmes invested in them under this condition. Industrial countries could learn a lot from these poorer regions.
Who should solve the problem? The UN. This organisation is the most powerful and most wide-spread supranational body that can achieve these targets. However, many important ideas and proposals concerning the battle against climate change are often refused by the Security Council, since the USA, Russia and China rely on fossil fuels and non-environmental-friendly production ways. For instance, the international summit Rio+20 is now heavily criticized because of this – the blockade by the powerful states such as the USA prevented the formulation of clearly defined aims at the summit. Clearly, some changes have to be made there.
What is Europe’s role in this and how can we reach one clear standpoint on this matter? This brings us back to the line: “Europe, united in diversity”. Within Europe situations, political, economical, geographical, demographical, etc, change wherever you go, and perhaps we can use this diversity to our advantage, instead of always being a barrier which is hard to overcome when taking decisions. We’re thinking of a pan-European super grid which will incorporate sustainable energy sources varying on the geographical features within Europe, but we’ll elaborate on this later. The main goal that has to be achieved is to get all our noses in the same direction. Within Europe, there are large differences in advancements in sustainable technology. These discrepancies between nations make it difficult to form one policy which can represent the entire Union, the first goal therefore would be to have the lesser advanced countries to improve their situation and then forming a common European goal. The reason why these differences should be solved is that when, for example, a measure would be to decrease CO2 output by another 15% while some country had just cut its emissions by 30%, it would require a lot more effort than to have a member state that didn’t do anything yet cut its emissions, these inequalities would then lead to conflicts in the policy making process, having a detrimental effect on the effectiveness of the resolutions. Furthermore, the differences in use of nuclear energy are also relevant. For example, France receives 78,8% of its annual power demand from nuclear power plants, which is an even higher percentage than the tsunami-stricken Japan. While nuclear energy is not a renewable energy source but does not emit greenhouse gases in the process of generating power, it still emits carbon dioxide during the enriching of the required nuclear fuel rods. The Netherlands, for example, only receive approximately 5% of their annual energy demand from nuclear sources, meaning they receive the rest from mainly coal-fired plants and other polluting means. This difference should also be incorporated in cutting emissions, as it will be much easier for, in this case, the Dutch to cut their emission rates by adapting their coal-fired plants or changing to another source, than the French, whose energy production itself is clean.
As said before, this problem requires more than just EU cooperation to solve, namely states worldwide should join hands in this struggle. Even though this is what we should aim for, and the only real solution to this issue, we can’t expect all the members of the UN to suddenly agree on one matter overnight. That would be too ideological and rather unrealistic. This is why first we should get our own problems solved, set the example for the rest of the world and improve our domestic situation. Who should agree to this problem? All states of Europe. We do not see why there should be any left out, even the ones that are trying to overcome pending bankruptcy like Greece and Spain, as the green energy sector offers plenty of job opportunities and potential economical growth to be worthy to stimulate. It’s necessary for everyone to agree in the end, to send out a strong signal, and to become a leader in renewable energy sources who can take the lead in getting the world to think green. In the end, it’s all about cooperation.
As far as the participation of citizens in decision-making concerning this topic is concerned, we are sceptical. We find not necessary to hold referenda about this topic, unlike topics like a European Constitution. Moreover, we think it would unnecessarily slow down policy making and perhaps limiting the eventual effectiveness of decisions.
