Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-22-Speech-3-132"
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"en.20060322.12.3-132"2
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"Mr President, when the lights went out in California, in Turin and even in my own home town of Wexford – not to mention the recent Gazprom incident – there was a sudden concentration of minds on the security of energy supply, which is of critical importance to us both strategically and economically, particularly with energy import dependency and costs growing exponentially. As the recent Green Paper on energy policy tells us, unless we can make our domestic energy more competitive in the next couple of decades, 70% of the Union’s energy requirements will have to be met by imported products, compared to a figure of only 50% today. Most of this is from regions threatened by geopolitical instability.
This figure, however, masks the higher energy import dependency of peripheral and geographically isolated energy markets such as the Baltics, Ireland and other island communities. In Ireland, we have gone from 65% dependency on imported energy in 1990 to over 90% dependency today, and rising. Our indigenous fossil fuel supplies – peat and natural gas – have been rapidly depleting since 1995, while record economic and industrial growth has pushed up demand.
While the energy mix must continue to remain a Member State competence, in a single market, an attack on one is an attack on all in energy terms. Solidarity within the EU will be vital in securing equitably distributed supplies from outside our borders, through the completion of a competitive, integrated, internal energy market. This cannot happen without additional physical capacity, in the form of trans-European energy networks, to connect us all to a European grid.
Within each Member State, effective ‘unbundling’ of network and supply activities in gas and electricity must be made a reality: in Ireland this has yet to happen.
Through EU-level and Member state incentives, we must seriously target the development and mainstreaming of the 21 types of renewables, not least because of our obligations in relation to climate change. I get the impression that, especially where biofuels are concerned, there is no lack of interest: the research and investment communities are circling, but afraid to take a leap in the dark. Talk, goodwill and interest are not enough; we need serious financial and regulatory catalysts to increase research and roll out the development of pilot projects using cutting-edge renewable technologies.
The decoupling of economic growth and energy consumption and the whole story of demand side management cannot be ignored. World energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions are expected to rise by 60% by 2030. By increasing energy efficiency measures alone by 2020, we can reduce demand by over 20%.
Commissioner, do not wait until the lights go out again! Let us act now and keep energy security at the top of the political agenda in peacetime."@en1
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