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The European Commission presented today its Energy Roadmap 2050, as the EU has set itself the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80%-95% below 1990 levels by 2050. The Roadmap explores how this goal can be achieved while at the same time improving the competitiveness and the security of supply. Rather than presenting one strategic option, it describes seven different scenarios. Every scenario is based on a different energy mix, combing varying shares of renewables and the importance given to energy efficiency and new technologies such as CCS.  By describing these scenarios and also their impact on costs and prices, it should help Member States to make the necessary policy choices. Each country is responsible for its own energy choices. But they must be integrated in the overall context and take into account the potential consequences on its neighbours.

Member States have to start now to debate how their energy mix will look like in 2050 and create a stable business investment for private investors. If the political choices are not made, there is uncertainty and much needed investments will be delayed. In the energy sector, investments are made for a period between 20 and 60 years. The key outcomes are: The demand for renewable energy will grow; Energy savings will be crucial; The role for electricity will increase; Capital investments will increase; The fossil fuel bill will decrease.

The Commission, after extensive discussions with stakeholders, has identified four main decarbonisation routes for the energy sector – energy efficiency impacting mostly on the demand side and on the supply side renewable, nuclear and CCS. The scenarios proposed explore different combinations of this four decarbonisation paths interacting:

• two current trend scenarios: the reference scenario and an updated version including current policy initiatives. This latter scenario serves as the basis of all decarbonisation scenarios;
• a high energy efficiency, where there is a commitment to very high energy savings, leading to a 41% decrease in energy demand by 2050 compared to the 2005-2006 peaks;
• diversified supply technologies, in which all energy sources compete on a market basis with no specific support measures;
• high renewable energy sources (RES), with strong support measures for RES  resulting in a RES share amounting to 75% in gross final energy consumption, and to 97% in electricity consumption;
• a delayed Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) with the share of nuclear energy in primary energy consumption amounting to 18%;
• and a low nuclear with higher shares of CCS, around 32% in power generation.

Europe will not be willingly moving in a direction that harms itself. The European Union is working continuously to convince partners to move towards greater decarbonisation worldwide in a common effort. In the absence of a fair and comprehensive international climate change agreement, the European Union will have to adapt and assess further the implications of unilateral action. In such events, measures against carbon leakage will have to be strengthened to ensure a level playing field for EU industry. A more comprehensive analysis of different global paths to decarbonisation was presented in the Low Carbon Economy Roadmap 2050 exploring impacts of three global climate situations: a) business as usual; b) global climate action and c) fragmented action.

The EC Energy Roadmap 2050 is available at this address: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/energy2020/roadmap/index_en.htm