Speech by EU Commissioner Simson for the Opening of the EU Energy Day at COP27

“Check against delivery”

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EU pavilion here at COP27, to open our energy day.

We meet here after a difficult year. Climate change has left its mark on the world with wildfires and droughts, freak storms and floods. Russia has attacked a peaceful neighbour and made energy into a political weapon. And we are facing a truly global energy crisis, triggered by Russia’s actions.

For Europe in particular, the latter has meant drastically smaller energy supplies from Russia and unsustainably high electricity and gas prices. But the consequences are felt on energy markets around the planet.

How do we, as Europe, respond to these challenges? I do not believe that we can solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.

We all know that this winter – and the next – are going to be challenging. But we are in this difficult position not because we have been too green, but because we have not been green enough. We are learning the hard way what relying on fossil fuels and untrustworthy partners can mean.

So we are drawing the obvious conclusions from today’s predicament. We will end our dependency on Russian fossil fuels. AND we will remain committed to the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, reaching climate-neutrality by 2050 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of this decade.

Our response to the twin climate and energy challenge is a plan called REPowerEU. It has three main pillars – saving energy, ramping up renewables and diversifying our energy supply.

Energy savings and efficiency are the foundation of our efforts. Last year, we received 155 bcm of Russian gas. By now, Russian pipeline gas makes up only 9% of our supply, and at any moment it may stop entirely.

We cannot simply replace this gas with the same amount of gas from other suppliers. It is both unsustainable and unfeasible. We must cut our demand. In August and September, the gas consumption in the EU was 15% lower than usual. Exactly the goal we have set ourselves for this winter, with the Save Gas for a Safe Winter plan.

We have also agreed to use less electricity, in particular when it comes to peak hours, when gas-fired power plants are often needed.

Saving should of course not be a short-term crisis measure. We need to waste less energy and become more energy efficient in the long term, making lasting, structural changes. I hope that this will be one of the legacies of this crisis.

What we cannot save, we must produce as sustainably as possible. This is not only good for the climate, but for our energy security: home-grown renewables come with much fewer risks than imported fossil fuels. Wind is more difficult to turn off – or sabotage – than a pipeline.

Our energy system cannot become renewables-based overnight, but we can accelerate the process. As with energy efficiency, we are upgrading our 2030 renewables target, proposing 45% of renewable sources in our energy mix by then.

There are already some very encouraging signs. 2022 is going to be a record year for solar energy in the EU, with 40 GW of new capacity installed. Both the North and Baltic Sea countries have very ambitious plans for offshore energy, surpassing what we envisaged in our offshore energy strategy just two years ago. Already today, 38% of our electricity comes from renewables, which is more than from fossil sources.

But we must push further. One bottleneck that prevents faster progress is permitting. If it can take almost a decade for a project to get a green light, a renewables revolution is not likely to happen.

To improve the situation, the Commission has proposed a comprehensive overhaul of our permitting system. It makes clear that renewable projects are in the overriding public interest; creates go-to areas where environmental risks are lower and permitting can be faster; and streamlines the processes overall.

To make sure that renewables can already help us to address the crisis this winter, we have made an additional emergency proposal to accelerate permitting in areas where it can have an effect in the coming months – for example rooftop solar, heatpumps and repowering existing projects.

We have increased our ambition for renewable hydrogen and biomethane as alternatives for fossil gas and come out with a solar strategy.

Among other things, we aim to double solar PV capacity by 2025 and install 600GW by 2030. To get there, we will oblige EU Member States to install rooftop solar energy on new buildings from 2026; and we are setting up a Solar Alliance to work with industry and interest groups to build a strong and competitive EU solar sector.

I mentioned earlier that we do not plan to replace every molecule of Russian gas with molecules from other suppliers. We are not going to increase our gas consumption – not this winter nor later. Our trajectory towards net zero is clear. But we must acknowledge that some of this Russian gas needs to be replaced and our imports reorientated.

As we are doing this, engaging with reliable suppliers around the world, like our host country Egypt, we want to have a relationship that goes beyond gas. We look to future cooperation, for example on renewable hydrogen or other clean technologies.

Ladies and gentlemen, I outlined in very broad strokes, what the EU is doing as a response to the current energy crisis, and to stay the course towards our Paris goals.

But as this is the Implementation COP, it is important that you hear not just from me and the European Commission, but also from our Member States who are turning our common ambition into local action.

I am therefore especially glad to welcome four of my colleagues who have kindly agreed to help me in opening the EU energy day and give their perspective of the challenges we are facing and the opportunities we should grasp.

Teresa, Leonore, Tinne and Rob are among those who defend the necessity of the green transition most fiercely. Thank you so much for joining me and our audience today – the floor is yours.

Compliments of the European Commission.