environment and climate report
Catharina Sikow-Magny: Decarbonising Europe’s economy Catharina Sikow-Magny, Director of Green Transition and Energy System Integration at the European Commission, discusses the role of renewable energy in decarbonisation, the Fit for 55 legislative package, and how Ireland is leading the charge to decarbonise electricity. The European Green Deal aims at making the EU climate neutral by 2050. To achieve this, a binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 was set by the European Commission. To implement this ambition, the Fit for 55 package was adopted in three parts: in summer 2021, 12 legal proposals aimed at making this target a costeffective reality were published with laws specific to renewables, energy efficiency, emissions, land use, and transport. In December 2021, then, the Commission published the second part of the package with legislative proposals focusing on how to decarbonise the gases sector and buildings.
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Targets Sikow-Magny says that one of the key objectives to realise the aims of the package is the rigorous deployment of renewable energies across all sectors. She notes that Europe had the 20-2020 targets for 2020 and met its targets by reducing emissions by 20 per cent, increased the share of renewables and improved energy efficiency. “At the EU level, we have somewhat exceeded the 20 per cent target on renewables; we are at 21.3 per cent,” Sikow-Magny says, adding: “The situation in member states is very different as the targets were very different; Ireland has met its target with 16.2 per cent, slightly exceeding it. The specific success stories in the EU are in
the electricity sector, where 37 per cent today comes from renewable sources and here Ireland has made spectacular progress recently and can clearly show best practice examples to other member states.”
Progress In 2010, Europe had 110GW of solar and wind capacity cumulatively. Today, the EU has 120GW in solar and over 170GW in wind. In other sectors, progress has been too slow. However, sectors such as heating and cooling, industry, transport, all these sectors rely heavily on fossil fuels still, Sikow-Magny notes. “This is the situation in Ireland and everywhere in Europe almost and further efforts are needed to get these sectors on track for decarbonisation.
