The United Kingdom is doing piss-poorly in increasing its use of renewable energy in comparison to its European counterparts, according to figures released this week. The UK is the farthest, by considerable distance, from in reaching its Europe 2020 target for reducing emissions, relative to other EU nations.
According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, the 26-member block broke past 15 per cent of energy coming from renewable sources in 2013, up from 14.3 per cent in 2012. The EU already seems to be well on its way to reach its target of the gross share of renewable energy consumption being 20 per cent by 2020. That “gross share” is defined by the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC as the total amount of renewable energy supplied to industry, transport, households, services, agriculture, forestry and fisheries – and every EU Member States has its own Europe 2020 target, many of which are much higher than 20 per cent. It means that the EU needs an average rise of 0.7 per cent a year to reach a 19.9 per cent by 2020.
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