l'Actualité du Solaire

A thousand billion euros is a lot, or is it a ridiculously small amount?

Other estimates are quite different

Promises only bind those who listen to them!

Addressing the most militant fringe of environmentalists

The evolution of this Commission can already be seen. There are two of them:

Is a thousand billion euros a lot or is it a ridiculously small amount?

The President of the European Commission Ursula van der Leyden (vdL) presented her figures for the cost of the energy transition in the Union for the period 2021 to 2027. She put it at one thousand billion euros. Is it much too much? Is it too little?

For the origin of the funds, see the article (The European Commission has described the financing of one thousand billion euros).

Why did you choose the figure? Is it because it is important enough to be credible? Or on the contrary is it from the outset largely insufficient, but no credible sources of capital could be found to bring about accession?

As it is financing over the eight-year period, this brings the Union's annual amount down to an average of €125 billion, to be spread over the 28 or 27 countries of the Union, i.e. an arithmetic average of less than €5 billion per year and per State! We are already coming back to something perceptible. Moreover, this annual amount should be rather in the order of 100 billion euros in 2021 (and perhaps much less because of the projects to be developed but not yet financed!). Of course, the amount in 2027 could be double that of 2021!

Other estimates are quite different

Here, this amount of less than 5 billion euros per year and per Member State is ridiculous. We reported on 12 November that during an Innoenergy conference in Berlin (Will the new European Commission be the climate change Commission? cat Europe 12nov )In his speech, Mr Haitze Siemers, from the EU Energy Directorate, said that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would require an additional investment estimated at 180 to 250 billion euros per year to develop energy systems and infrastructure from 2030 onwards. He said there was no miracle technology to defeat climate change and that renewable energy capacity had to be deployed quickly. In early December, president van der Leyen had estimated that an additional €260bn a year would be needed in additional global funding. So we are now beyond the 100 to 125 billion € announced in January by the President at one month intervals!

Promises only bind those who listen to them!

This one has focused its objective on climate change. The 2030 objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% with a target of zero by 2050. In addition to that Ms Since van der Leyen will no longer be alive at the end of forty years, and she will no longer be President of the European Commission in 2030, she can therefore serenely place her objectives at a date sufficiently far in the future so that she cannot be blamed if her ambitions are not realised. It can also revise its objectives between now and then.

It has only set its targets on a climate ambition, i.e. by limiting emissions or replacing them. It has been careful not to mention how it intends to replace emissions. It has only indicated that it intends to transform every economic sector in the European Union (energy, agriculture, transport, construction) to bring them into line with the green principles, postponing until next March the establishment of an industrial strategy to stimulate renewable energies. She postponed the presentation of how she would go about this.

This policy will soon come up against the mechanisms of Community decisions and the autonomy of each country, which will have to transpose European decisions into national law, and how quickly.

During the presentation of its Green Plan at the beginning of December, it had evoked above all the taxation at the borders of imported products with a too high carbon amount, inciting Russian and American exporters to frown before this will to tax their products.

Addressing the most militant fringe of ecologists

As a result of all this, the President of the European Union addressed the youth activist fringe, telling them that she was going to implement their programme for a cleaner climate, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and become the world's good example. Already, the vagueness in the way of proceeding can be seen in its financing, in its means, because although it mentioned wind power by name, it never mentioned photovoltaic energy, as if it considered it to be a "clean energy source".It is too expensive, too slow to install, or too complicated to find space for installations, since more and more we hear of refusals to sell land, or demonstrations against installation projects.

If the president does not use photovoltaics (contrary to the hopes of professionals in the sector), how will she go about achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, or even a 55% reduction in European greenhouse gas emissions by 2030? As it will be confronted with the European time frame for Community decision-making, and with reprisals from foreign countries in the face of its carbon tax, what will be the result of its action over a four-year period?

Its Green Plan corresponds more to that of a head of government of a Member State of the Union who has the capacity to act, than to that of the President of the European Union who must coordinate twenty-eight countries, each with its own interests, its own objectives, and also its own population to satisfy.

The evolution of this commission can already be seen. There are two of them:

Either it succeeds in quickly involving the various heads of government of the Union in this mission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then the coordination between the different members will take an unforeseen acceleration towards a supranational direction that accelerates the unity of Europe and federates theThe result will be a European entity that is aware of its unity and strength, and ready to discover its uniqueness in the face of the United States and China.

If this alternative does not succeed, the president will have succeeded in disarming the environmental activists, in showing her good will, and above all in saving time. Why time? Because nothing is ready in Europe to set up wind and photovoltaic installations on a large scale if we judge by the reluctance of the populations. We are only at the beginning of awareness in each State. We are only at the stage of saying to ourselves that something should be done. We are barely questioning the ways of acting. Above all, no population in any Member State is ready to really set a course for renewable energies (it is enough to note that the price of the solar kWh has not managed to decrease for several calls for tenders and several quarters in France or Germany: this constitutes an unforeseen brake). Europeans are not ready to move forward! So Mrs van der Leyen is an excellent politician who makes people believe she has understood the expectations of young people, who is preparing as much as she can for the advent of a carbon-free world, but who knows deep down inside that she amuses the gallery with her announcements! This attitude is not to be regretted. She is the only reasonable one! She has understood us!