Decarbonisation of energy systems requires deep structural change. The purpose of this research was to analyse the rates of change taking place in the energy systems of each Member State of the European Union (EU), and the EU in aggregate, in the light of the EU's climate change mitigation objectives. Trends on indicators such as sectoral activity levels and composition, energy intensity, and carbon intensity of energy were compared with decadal benchmarks derived from deep decarbonisation scenarios. The methodology applied provides a useful and informative approach to tracking decarbonisation of energy systems. The results show that while the EU has made significant progress in decarbonising its energy system. On a number of indicators assessed the results show that a significant acceleration from historical levels is required in order to reach the rates of change seen on the future benchmarks for deep decarbonisation. The methodology applied provides an example of how the research community and international organisations could complement the transparency mechanism developed by the Paris Agreement on climate change, to improve understanding of progress toward low-carbon energy systems.
This article studies ex-post the CO2 emissions determinants during 2005-2012 by resorting to an original database merging the European Union Transaction Log (EUTL) with the World Electric Power Plants (WEPP) database maintained by Platts. We estimate the main drivers of CO2 emissions for the 1,453 power plants included in the EU ETS using plant-level panel data. During phases I and II, there has been a debate about whether the economic crisis was ultimately the only factor behind the fall in CO2 emissions. We find that the EU ETS kept some degree of effectiveness but only during phase I (2005-07). During phase II (2008-12), its impact has been largely impeded by the deep economic recession in 2008-2009 which became the leading cause of the emissions reduction. We disentangle the analysis not only by periods but also for each type of power plants. We conclude that the EU Commission's flagship climate policy could and should be enhanced by better coordination of overlapping climate policies.
Launched in 2019, the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) tasked 150 randomly chosen citizens with proposing fair and effective measures to fight climate change. This was to be fulfilled through an “innovative co-construction procedure”, involving some unspecified external input alongside that from the citizens. Did inputs from the steering bodies undermine the citizens’ accountability for the output? Did co-construction help the output resonate with the general public, as is expected from a citizens’ assembly? To answer these questions, we build on our unique experience in observing the CCC proceedings and documenting them with qualitative and quantitative data. We find that the steering bodies’ input, albeit significant, did not impair the citizens’ agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. While succeeding in creating consensus among the citizens who were involved, this co-constructive approach, however, failed to generate significant support among the broader public. These results call for a strengthening of the commitment structure that determines how follow-up on the proposals from a citizens’ assembly should be conducted.
The general public's perception of the citizens' wo.
This has been corrected to:The general public's perception of the citizens' work.In the Data availability statement, this sentence appeared: More detail can be found in Section "Methods".
This has been changed to:More detail can be found in Section "Materials and Methods". This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.
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