Invest in European Leadership, Invest in Sustainability, Invest in European Decarbonisation Technology

Dear Commissioners,
Dear Members of European Parliament,
Dear Deputy Permanent Representatives,

The undersigned organisations would like to express their strong support for the EU’s response to tackle the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge EU institutions and national governments to continue to support the EU climate neutrality target in 2050 and fully support the recent call by thirteen EU climate and environment ministers to place the European Green Deal at the heart of the EU’s recovery plan. We strongly believe that this objective, in order to guarantee swift economic recovery, must be underpinned by a targeted development of renewable and decarbonised gas and their uptake, echoed by a smart sector integration approach.

We believe the next step should be that of pairing economic recovery with climate and energy objectives across value chains. This will ensure that whilst industry has proven resilient in supplying energy given the exceptional situation created by COVID-19, Europe can emerge stronger from the current crisis and establish itself as a global leader on clean energy technology manufacturing.

To this end, we support measures which would help swift economic recovery for affected sectors including SMEs. This could include an economic stimulus package which could help the development and deployment of a variety of clean energy technologies. These will be key in achieving the EUs climate objectives in the coming stages of the energy transition and will help maintain existing jobs and create new ones within the EU.

Given that in a climate neutral 2050 gaseous energy will account for a substantial share of final energy use in Europe, the large-scale and rapid decarbonisation of gaseous energy must be one of the priorities of the recovery period. Considering the consumption of residential and industrial users alongside heat and power generators, it is particularly important to seize the opportunity provided by Europe’s leadership in innovation and the manufacturing and deployment of these decarbonised and renewable technologies.

Concentrating our economic recovery efforts on climate technology sectors where Europe is leading, like hydrogen, biogas and processes such as CCUS, offers Europe the twin benefit of stimulating economic recovery and jobs, as well as contributing to the energy transition. Indeed, these sectors have a predominantly European-based value chain. According to recent studies the gas sector and associated sectors could create up to 5.4 million jobs linked to the production and utilisation of renewable and decarbonised gas by 2050.

By maintaining and strengthening Europe’s industrial leadership in gas decarbonisation technologies with high efficiency technologies operating alongside, Europe will create new export opportunities for our own climate technology, products and services that will be required worldwide in order to achieve global climate neutrality by 2050.

Any stimulus package should therefore focus on our European value chains along with renewable and decarbonisation champions and ensure that we come through this current crisis with a bright future for European manufacturing of climate technologies with enhanced leadership, job opportunities and the development of new and dynamic markets to accommodate them. We therefore urge you to consider making renewable and decarbonised gases and their efficient use, which provide security of energy supply, a central pillar of the stimulus plan for the post COVID-19 period in Europe.

*****

_

Download this joint letter as pdf here