This October, European leaders will be setting Europe’s climate and energy targets for the next sixteen years. The targets proposed so far by the European Commission (30%) are disappointingly low and seriously unambitious. Friends of the Earth Europe is calling for three, binding, ambitious targets.
One such target is energy efficiency. Below, we looked at how these targets impact the climate, economy, employment and energy security, using the European Commission’s official projections.
While an ambitious target 40% has similar costs to a 30% target, the benefits are much, much higher.
This is true for the EU as a whole, but also for each individual country. Below is the predicted impact of these targets on GDP for every EU member state.
Source: European Commission’s Impact Assessment on Energy Efficiency, 2014, using the PRIMES 2014 and E3ME modelling systems.