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.
Looking through the status for different EU nations, however, shows that some countries are much, much better than others at getting on with the task. Although by no means a competition, Sweden is miles ahead – it produced 52.1 per cent of its energy from renewable sources in 2013, beating contenders Latvia (37.1 per cent), Finland (36.8 per cent) and Austria (32.6 per cent) by some distance. The UK, by contrast, only managed a renewable share of 5.1 per cent, putting it in the bottom four with the Netherlands (4.5 per cent), Malta (3.8 per cent) and Luxembourg (3.6 per cent).
Bulgaria, Estonia and Sweden have already reached their 2020 target, and nearly at the finish line as well are Lithuania, Romania and Italy, each less than 0.5 percentage points from their targets. Not only does the UK have one of the most unambitious targets – 15 per cent, compared to 30 for Denmark, for example, or 67.5 for Norway – but it’s also the farthest away of any EU nation. The EU may appear on course to meet the 2020 goal, but some nations are pulling their weight more than others.
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