RENEWAL ENERGY

By Stefania, Beyond Copenhagen Volunteer at COP15
12th of December, Niels Bohr: Renewable energy – the key solution to mitigate climate change
Participants: EREC, European Renewable Energy Council, Greenpeace
How can we establish a sustainable energy policy to fight climate change?
It is fundamental to go from principles to practice, focusing on energy efficiency, structural change, and energy efficient transportation, by investing in electric vehicles.
The 20-20-20 EU policy by 2020 forecasts to reduce energy demand and consumption together with greenhouse gas by 20%, and to increase, by the same percentage, the use of renewable energy.
To this regard, EREC has shown some positive data. In 2008 the first energetic source to be installed in Europe was the wind; moreover in the same yeas 57% of the all energy generated was renewable. However, there are still things to be done: the electricity market needs to be reformed and it’s important to invest more in the research and development of renewable energy, instead of fossil and nuclear.
At the beginning the set up costs will be high, but they will drastically diminish during the years. Furthermore, renewable energy will not only benefit the environment, but also the population, since it has been forecasted that it will generate about 2 millions jobs by 2020.