EU energy futures landscape

Transcription

1 EU energy futures landscape Located between state and market, choices and trade-offs over supply-side, demand-side, transmission and load-balancing infrastructure involving: energy conservation; renewable energy; European-scale networks for energy distribution; local distributed energy; market innovations from energy supply to energy services; carbon sequestration; nuclear fusion and fission; and the restructuring of transport and built environment.

2 EU participatory governance EU slisbonstrategiesof 2000,2005,and2009. EU Directive on Public Participation in Environmental Plans and Programmes. EU Public Participation Provisions of the Aarhus Convention. EU Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment. EU Directives on Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control (IPPC) and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA). EC Energy Futures and Civil Society EC 2050 Low Carbon Road Map (2012): Citizens need to be informed and engaged in the decision-making process, while technological choices need to take account of the local environment. So far, public involvement has largely been limited to the acceptability of individual energy technologies.

3 Ecologic (2007): Public Acceptance of Renewable Energies at the Regional Level. Involved Future Labs with representatives from local authorities, NGOs, science, business and other stakeholders. European Nuclear Energy Forum: Initiated ongoing concrete structured stakeholder dialogues to broaden the nuclear discussion basis. Local energy involvement 1. Transition Network: Supportscommunity-led responses to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy.

4 Local energy involvement 2. European Sustainable Energy Communities (2011): Effective Integrated Local Energy Action Today: Involved non-technical, capacity building, peer exchange and review of energy security by a broad range of local stakeholders. Regional involvement Alberta Climate Dialogue, Canada:Thousands of Albertans and leaders from Alberta municipalities, industries, environmental groups and provincial government departments are pooling diverse perspectives and weighing trade-offs in order to make recommendations to municipal and provincial governments on climate change policy.

5 Pan-EU regions / cities involvement EUROCITIES; ICLEI; Energy for Mayors; Cities for Inclusive Action; Imagine; Energycities, Engage: Dialogues about energy futures involving European local government and cities. National energy involvement 1. Danish Board of Technology (2007): The Future Danish Energy System: Invited a broad set of individuals representing the energy sector, researchers, NGOs, and the Danish Folketingto look at avenues for the development of the Danish Energy system.

6 National energy involvement 2. UK DECC 2050 Public Energy Dialogue (2011): Developed online tools to engage the public, elected and business representatives and the third sector About choices the UK has to make to move to low-carbon energy by Business / industry involvement Corporate social responsibility (CSR) European multi-stakeholder forum: EC mediated platform for dialogue between employers, trade unions, business organisations, civil society. With energy futures as a key area.

7 Research institute -expert involvement Smart Energy Dialogue (2007): A pan-eu and US forum on the transformation of energy and transport sectors. Involved experts from industry, research and policy to discuss a roadmap towards energy security, energy efficiency and economic decarbonisation. Scenario-building involvement ENCI LOWCARB (2012): Engaging Civil Society in Low Carbon Futures: Developed sophisticated low carbon scenarios for Germany and France based on stakeholder and expert interaction. Civil society stakeholders framed the boundary conditions for the energy-economy model, experts ran the model, and then stakeholders reevaluated the results.

8 Analytical deliberation The central position of stakeholders in scenariobuilding allowed the integration of the degree of acceptance for specific energy policy measures or technology decisions. By adding this element, an important step was made from showing what is technically and economically possible to what is feasible and accepted. Focusing existing energy involvement capacity Although there are many emerging forms of energy futures participation at local, city, regional, national, and pan-eu levels - there s a real practical need to channel this diffuse involvement and expertise. Although EU states differ -European energy policy offers a fairly open and flexible framework in which member states can develop collective action on civil society and energy futures.

9 Pilot national energy forum Spanish Energy Mix Forum, 2012: Structured national discussion on differing low carbon energy sources in Spain. Reviewing economic, technical, environmental and socio-political aspects of differing low carbon energy sources. Involving stakeholders through dialogue. Pan-EU national energy forums Given the size of long-term investment now needed across energy options -public values and attitudes are key in enabling or inhibiting energy system change. Since EU states have diverse energy landscapes - it s important to look at each national energy system as a whole, exploring real choices and trade-offs. If carried out in an involving way -much better ownership of decisions and take-up of necessary change.