Decarbonizing Europe would go a long way toward saving the world, not only from Global Warming, but from Putin's oil and gas machinations. You may therefore expect to see wrenches thrown from afar. Oil and gas companies are not happy about it either. See Rachel Maddow's Blowout for essential background.
European Commission announces €1tn Green Deal ambition
President Ursula von der Leyen has outlined plans to fund her Green Deal with a mix of EU, member state and private sector contributions. Now it is over to individual nations and the European Parliament.
The European Commission has announced an ambition to generate €1 trillion to finance its European Green Deal.
The commission threw down the gauntlet to EU member states and the European Parliament yesterday by emphasizing the urgency of pushing through the climate change funding arrangement as talks over the bloc’s next long-term budget near completion.
In an announcement of the financing ambition released by the commission, new president Ursula von der Leyen said: “The transformation ahead of us is unprecedented. And it will only work if it is just and if it works for all. We will support our people and our regions that need to make bigger efforts in this transformation, to make sure that we leave no one behind. The Green Deal comes with important investment needs which we will turn into investment opportunities. The plan that we present today, to mobilise at least €1 trillion, will show the direction and unleash a green investment wave.”
EU budget
To progress, the deal will now have to be approved for inclusion in the bloc’s 2021-27 long-term budget – in ‘EUese’, the multi-annual financial framework.
The EU loves an initialism or two and the newly announced Sustainable European Investment Plan (SEIP) or European Green Deal Investment Plan (EGDIP) envisages €503 billion being contributed from the next seven-year budget, with an additional €25 billion from the funding allocated for the bloc’s emissions trading scheme during that period.
The InvestEU program 75% guaranteed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) will generate €279 billion from its parent, member state national banks and international lenders.
Member state bill
Member state structural funds will be expected to contribute €114 billion and the €79 billion balance appears to be expected from member state contributions to a proposed ‘Just Transition Mechanism’– intended to help areas most effected from the shift away from fossil fuel generation.
The Just Transition funding is planned to amount to at least €100 billion – rising to a total €143 billion up to 2030. Some €30-50 billion of that will include a newly announced €7.5 billion on top of existing long-term EU budget allocations for the energy transition, which will be expected to trigger the other €22.5-42.5 billion due to a requirement for member states to match-fund the initial €7.5 billion from their European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund Plus windfalls as well as making substantial further contributions.
A just transition
InvestEU will be expected to attract €45 billion of the Just Transition cash from private investment and the EIB will open a €25-30 billion facility offering affordable loans to the public sector in member states. A legislative proposal for that loan facility – which would include €10 billion from EIB funds and €1.5 billion from the EU budget – is expected in March.
The Just Transition Fund, the commission said, will be intended “to help workers and communities which rely on the fossil fuel value chain” and efforts will be made to circumvent any state-aid related restrictions which would otherwise apply.
With coal dependent nations such as Poland apparently offered such a generous package, it is now over to member states to ensure the ambitious program becomes enshrined in the seven-year budget.
A proposed division of costs is included.
Jan 16, 2020 - The European Commission has officially announced its ambitions to generate €1-trillion in order to finance its European Green Deal.
Ms von der Leyen, who took up her role as Commission President on December 1, said in a statement:
The transformation ahead of us is unprecedented. And it will only work if it is just and if it works for all. We will support our people and our regions that need to make bigger efforts in this transformation, to make sure that we leave no one behind. The Green Deal comes with important investment needs which we will turn into investment opportunities. The plan that we present today, to mobilise at least €1-trillion, will show the direction and unleash a green investment wave.
Budget negotiations are particularly difficult after Brexit. See also this European Parliament analysis.
Turning the EU into a climate neutral economy by 2050 will require massive investment in clean energy technologies. Only achieving an interim greenhouse gases reduction target of 40% by 2030 would require €260 billion of additional investment a year, according to the Commission’s estimates.
Europe's one trillion [euro] climate finance plan - European Parliament
Jan 15, 2020 - The European Green Deal Investment Plan is designed to attract at least one trillion euros worth of public and private investment over the next decade.
The investment plan was discussed in the Parliament on Tuesday 14 January. You can watch the whole debate here.
This is called the Just Transition Mechanism and will help mobilise at least €100 billion over the period 2021-2027 in the most affected regions.
Who pays for the EU's €1tn green deal? | Hans-Werner Sinn … The Guardian
Jan 23, 2020 -
Tackling climate crisis is laudable, but the plan pushes the European Central Bank into a legal grey area.
But much of that €1tn for the commission’s proposed green deal would be generated through financial-leverage effects. In 2020, the EU will formally allocate for such purposes only around €40bn, most of which is already included in the budget from previous years; arguably, only €7.5bn of additional funding under the plan would actually be new.
As with the previous commission’s 2015 Juncker plan, the trick, once again, will be to muster the lion’s share of the quoted sum through a shadow budget administered by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The commission, after all, is not allowed to incur debt; but the EU’s intergovernmental rescue and investment funds are.
These planned shadow budgets are problematic, not only because they would allow the commission to circumvent a prohibition against borrowing, but also because they implicate the European Central Bank. To be sure, the ECB president, Christine Lagarde, has already announced that she wants the bank to play a more active role in climate-friendly activities within the eurozone. And the ECB is now considering whether to pursue targeted purchases of bonds issued by institutions that have received the commission’s climate seal of approval.
IOW, the question is whether this is like the setups for the junk bond and mortgage meltdowns where everyone in sight got over-leveraged because This Time is Different. Watch out for Russia and Saudi Arabia looking for leverage of their own.
Every five years, the Commission will consider the latest international and scientific developments as well as existing EU policies, legislation and progress made towards the 2050 objectives, to assess whether the trajectory is still adequate or needs to be updated.
As part of a two-step approach, the Commission will first assess and make proposals for increasing the EU's greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2030 to ensure its consistency with the 2050 objective.
By September 2020, the Commission will present an impact assessed plan to increase the 2030 target to at least 50% and towards 55% compared to 1990 levels in a responsible way, and will propose to amend the climate law accordingly.
Jan 15, 2020 - President Ursula von der Leyen has outlined plans to fund her Green Deal with a mix of EU, member state and private sector contributions.
The EU loves an initialism or two and the newly announced Sustainable European Investment Plan (SEIP) or European Green Deal Investment Plan (EGDIP) envisages €503 billion being contributed from the next seven-year budget, with an additional €25 billion from the funding allocated for the bloc’s emissions trading scheme during that period.The Just Transition Fund, the commission said, will be intended “to help workers and communities which rely on the fossil fuel value chain” and efforts will be made to circumvent any state-aid related restrictions which would otherwise apply.
With coal dependent nations such as Poland apparently offered such a generous package, it is now over to member states to ensure the ambitious program becomes enshrined in the seven-year budget.
Policy briefing: Get ready for the European Green Deal — Ends Report
[Free registration required for limited access]
Feb 20, 2020 - The European Commission has promised a radical transformation of the EU economy with a wide-ranging decarbonisation plan. How will the proposals affect UK businesses?
It contains proposals for reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 50-55% by 2030, as well as plans for changes to the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) to include the maritime sector and a reduction in the number of free allowances for the aviation sector, as well as the inclusion of emissions from buildings.
Also included are promises of a new Circular Economy Action Plan and Industrial Strategy, a chemicals strategy for sustainability and a review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive to enhance corporate climate change reporting.
The commission is also proposing a carbon border adjustment mechanism for some sectors but only if differences in the level of carbon-related initiatives worldwide persist. The spotlight will be on whether those proposals are WTO-compliant.
How will the deal affect the UK’s environmental agenda?
This partly depends on how environmental standards feature in the trade negotiations between the UK and EU over the coming months and whether the UK accepts a level playing field seemingly demanded by the EU as part of any deal on goods.
SolarPower Europe repeats call for solar strategy as part of European Commission’s €1tn Green Deal
Lobby group [SolarPower Europe] CEO Walburga Hemetsberger says the plans announced by commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week should place the European solar industry front and center.
“Solar is booming in the EU, with [a more than] 100% market increase in 2019 and projections showing record-breaking installations in the coming years,” Hemetsberger told pv magazine. “This is a golden opportunity to adopt an industrial strategy for the solar industry that can ensure the security of [energy] supply, the creation of highly-skilled and local jobs and to maintain Europe’s world-leading R&D in solar.”
After several years of weak solar demand growth in Europe, compared to the historical highs of 2011, installations are expected to surge by 88% to reach a new installation record of 23 GW in 2019, writes Cormac Gilligan, research manager at IHS Markit. A range of favorable macro conditions have coalesced this year to reignite the market.
The global solar market is highly interconnected in 2019 and sensitive to big changes in demand, such as the decline of a large market like China. The solar supply chain has now reached a scale where suppliers will seek new growth opportunities instantly if key markets fail to install expected demand. The past year has been a prime example, as the failure of China to reach the same heights as 2018 meant that module and inverter suppliers swiftly expanded internationally and rapidly lowered prices in order to fill their order books.
Among the beneficiaries are European EPCs and developers who were actively installing during the lull in Chinese demand throughout the first nine months of 2019. European installations are forecast to have surged to account for 18% of total global additions – an increase of six percentage points over 2018. Several Chinese module manufacturers are expected to increase capacity in the next few years, with the mantra of scale being their strategy to maintain profitability. As a result, PV system prices are expected to fall in 2020, mainly due to PV module price decreases arising from excess module capacity, which will help drive Europe to install more cost competitive solar.
The past year saw a large resurgence in solar demand across multiple markets in Europe, following several years of modest growth. Some of the major solar players, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands, have long been stalwarts of the European solar industry and are expected to remain in the top 10. But growth markets such as Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and Portugal are expected to flourish. Demand is forecast to be quite concentrated within the top four markets of Germany, Spain, Ukraine, and the Netherlands. At 13 GW of installations, they are collectively forecast to account for almost 60% of European demand in 2019.
Oh, there are going to be so many Good News Diaries here about new targets and achievements in European countries.