Ahead of the Environment Council’s debate on the outcome of COP21, the Renovate Europe Campaign wrote to the President of the European Council and to the Dutch Minister for Infrastructure and the Environment, who chaired the Council. The letter urges the EU to make the energy renovation of buildings central to how it delivers the Paris Agreement.
COP21 Paris Agreement: immediate and ambitious action on energy renovation of buildings is crucial
Dear President Tusk,
Dear Minister Schultz van Haegen-Maas Geesteranus,
Given its leading role in the elaboration of the COP21 Paris Agreement, the EU must remain at the forefront of its implementation. To do this, it will be necessary to be courageous and to develop concrete and innovative approaches that will reduce emissions and boost growth and jobs.
The most cost effective tool that is available to you and the 28 Member States is to accelerate the energy renovation of our buildings. By doing so, you will give much needed meaning and life to the principle of Energy Efficiency First. It will be through investing in energy efficiency, especially in the buildings sector, that the EU can cost-effectively meet its long term climate commitments, while bringing resilience to the energy system. Our buildings consume 40% of all final energy in the EU and emit 36% of our greenhouse gases because they are old and inefficient and wasting up to 80% of all energy delivered to them. However, they could already be energy renovated with existing technologies and modern approaches to make them low energy and high performance, thus rendering them flexible towards future energy system changes.
Ambitious action on our buildings will create millions of local quality jobs1, dramatically reduce fuel poverty, improve living conditions, reduce air pollution and increase health, well-being and productivity2,3,4. Not least, this would also significantly contribute to the re-industrialisation goals of the EU and increase energy security by reducing overall energy demand.
The Renovate Europe Campaign and its 36 partner companies and associations, therefore urge you, in your deliberations on the outcome of the COP21, to fully recognise and integrate the strong contribution that ambitious action on energy renovation in the buildings sector can make to the achievement of a cleaner, more prosperous and better future for the EU and all of its citizens.
Unlocking the potential tied up in our building stock will require the preparation and full implementation of solid, long term strategic national plans to energy renovate our building stock. This should be based on stronger collaboration between all actors involved at EU and national levels, and a continuous political commitment to prioritise energy renovation and the deployment of innovative financial models. This approach will quickly enable deeper retrofits delivering higher savings, lower energy bills, more jobs, more comfort and quicker progress on our common COP21 ambition.
The revisions of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) offer a unique opportunity to ensure consistency between the policy framework for buildings and the overarching goal of a nearly zero energy, fully decarbonised building stock by 2050. This will set the required level of ambition for accelerating this energy transition through energy renovation.
We call on you to ensure that the revised EPBD addresses the significant waste of energy that is occurring, day after day, from our building stock in the EU.
Yours sincerely,
Adrian Joyce
Renovate Europe Campaign Director
1 See Efficient Buildings Europe (formerly EuroACE), How many jobs?
2 See the IEA report Capturing the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency.
3 See the Copenhagen Economics report Multiple Benefits of Investing in Energy Efficiency Renovations.
4 See the Global Buildings Performance Network report Monetary Benefits of Ambitious Building Energy Policies.
Copied to the Heads of State and Government and the Ministers for Environment of the 28 Member States of the European Union.
