The transition towards clean energy is contemplated as a central concept for EU energy and climate policies
The “White Paper on the Clean Energy Transition” prepared by the EERA (European Energy Research Alliance)was presented on 20th October. Our experts participated in its drafting, along with other specialists in energy and climate, members of the research community, as well as other relevant agents.
This emblematic White Paper has called for an interdisciplinary, holistic and inter-sectorial approach towards climate neutrality and for the self-contained compartments of governance to be broken and our social and economic model to be transformed. The document addresses the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in all economic sectors. We are reminded that although the use of energy represents around 75% of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, only a third of them originate directly in the energy sector. Therefore, achieving climate neutrality implies a much broader challenge than the decarbonisation of the energy sector per se.
Transition towards clean energy
The transition towards clean energy is contemplated as a central concept for EU energy and climate policies. It needs to be extended beyond climate neutrality in order to incorporate social equity and link it more broadly to global sustainability and social resilience concepts. Beyond its key technological aspects, the transition involves socio-economic elements and requires an interdisciplinary focus on the formulation of policies.
In this White Paper, the transition scenarios, an essential planning tool that enables key factors that make up the future and critical obstacles that need to be overcome to be evaluated, cover essential transversal aspects, such as digitalisation; circularity; sectoral coupling and the integration of systems; politics, regulation and markets; energy citizenship, cultures, practices and lifestyles. These provide the transition scenarios with overall social soundness by guaranteeing that coherent and integrated political measures and implementation actions derive from them.
The document represents an initial attempt to offer political heads a conceptual framework for the transition towards clean energy and help them define the best possible path towards a fair, sustainable, competitive and climatically neutral society.
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