Posted on
27 November 2009 - Brussels, Belgium – Europe
has failed to make significant ground with
two key energy efficiency measures, taking
positions that advantage industry after
months of negotiations.
On buildings and appliances,
the EU missed the opportunity to maintain
its one time position leading on energy
efficiency as a key way to reduce emissions,
costs and kick start the new green economy
often referred to in their rhetoric.
After initially rejecting
a confusing appliance energy rating scheme
that involved grades of A+++, A++, A+ and
A, Europe’s Trialogue parties of the European
Council, European Commission and European
Parliament accepted the scheme which would
see consumers confused and A grades going
to relatively energy inefficient products.
“No matter how we look
at it, there is nothing positive about introducing
three additional A-grades,” saids Mariangiola
Fabbri, Energy Policy Officer at WWF.
“Our goal should be
to make energy efficiency an easy choice
for consumers. Instead, decision makers
are buying time until the next revision
of the Directive in 2014.“
“Already now, the text
introduces a possibility of reclassifying
the labels during the next revision – which
clearly shows a lack of confidence in the
new system. We can only hope that despite
all the back and forth on labelling, consumers
will learn to identify the most efficient
products and even more so, buy them.“
Another setback came
with rejection of European Parliament efforts
to introduce an obligation for member states
to specify only the most efficient products
in public procurement procedures.
Missing the grade on
building energy efficiency as well
New building energy
efficiency measures also suffered from unwarranted
delays in implementation and a lack of measures
to require energy efficient renovation of
existing housing stock.
Agreed text on the new
Energy Efficiency in Buildings Directive
(EPBD) reflects neither the ambitions nor
the urgency required to put a stop to the
waste of energy in European buildings, responsible
for 40 per cent of final EU energy use and
36 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
The new EPBD was presented
as a breakthrough, largely on the basis
of new nearly zero energy consumption requirements
for new buildings irrespective of size,
a requirement for significant energy to
come from renewable sources, and initial
measures coming into effect in 2013.
However, the deadline
for nearly zero energy consumption is not
until 2021, and new construction accounts
for just a very small percentage of all
buildings (1% per year).
Still missing are clear
targets requiring Member States to renovate
their existing building stock in a specific
time frame. Also, no additional financing
was foreseen either from EU or from national
budgets to speed up renovations.
“Unfortunately there
is no provision at all which ensures that
laggard Member States will improve their
building regulations. As a consequence,
citizens will continue to spend a lot of
money to warm the climate instead of their
homes”, said Arianna Vitali, Energy Policy
Officer at WWF.
