EU to Urge "New Industrial Revolution" in Energy (at last!)

[donsu]

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/010507EA.shtml

-snip-

The draft strategy proposals, obtained by Reuters on Thursday before publication on Jan. 10, call for cutting carbon dioxide emissions further, increasing energy from renewable sources and curtailing the powers of large energy companies.

The draft lacks crucial details as the European Union's executive Commission is divided over the scope of liberalisation and where to set various targets, a Commission source said.

The EU's priority should be to combat climate change, promote jobs and economic growth and reduce the bloc's reliance on energy imports, the draft said.

"This means transforming Europe into a highly efficient and low CO2 energy economy by catalysing a new industrial revolution, accelerating the change to low carbon growth and, over the period of years, dramatically increasing the amount of local, low emission energy," it said.

-snip-

The draft envisaged three ways to improve regulation of the energy sector, with the most radical option being "a new body at Community level with the responsibility of setting rules for the EU electricity and gas market covering regulatory and technical issues relevant to make cross-border trade work".

The measures, including others to improve management of oil and gas stocks and better interconnectivity of power grids among EU countries, will represent the core of a Common European Energy Policy, giving the bloc one voice in dealing with third countries.

The draft said the EU should consider proposing this year a major international agreement on saving energy with the aim of signing it during the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008.
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hooray, some word action at last! now we will have to keep prodding the suits with pointed sticks to put action and money behind these words.

[applegrove]

1. Go EU!

[The2ndWheel]

2. So the process that got us into the mess

we're just going to keep it going, expecting something different. It makes sense, depending on where you're looking from.

"cutting carbon dioxide emissions further"

But obviously not enough.

"increasing energy from renewable sources"

Endless growth. Same old story.

"curtailing the powers of large energy companies"

Except for the renewable energy companies, who will all consolidate the same way oil and gas companies have done.

"The draft lacks crucial details"

Get outta town.

"The EU's priority should be to combat climate change, promote jobs and economic growth and reduce the bloc's reliance on energy imports"

Combat climate change by doing what? Enlarging the scale upon which we will still alter the climate as we will still use resources from the environment?

Promote jobs and econonomic growth. So as the jobs and economy grow, we'll not only continue to demand the energy levels we use today, but increase those demands. That will put more strain on the environment, and then what?

Reduce the reliance on energy imports by promoting endless growth? Yeah, that's not really...screw it.

"a new body at Community level with the responsibility of setting rules for the EU electricity and gas market covering regulatory and technical issues relevant to make cross-border trade work"

It must be me, because this makes zero sense. You still have the EU, and large scale trade, but the community level body is going to make the rules?

"The measures, including others to improve management of oil and gas stocks and better interconnectivity of power grids among EU countries, will represent the core of a Common European Energy Policy, giving the bloc one voice in dealing with third countries."

I think that makes my point.

We still want everything. We either have a global production machine churning out energy, or we have a habitat. It's one or the other.