Oil-Price Shocks Underscore Case for Climate Policy, EU Commissioner Says
Oil-Price Shocks Underscore Case for Climate Policy, EU Commissioner Says
(Bloomberg) -- The record spike in oil after an attack on a Saudi Arabian oil facility is yet another signal for the European Union’s energy chief that the 28-nation bloc should walk away from fossil fuels and become climate-neutral.
“We have already learned the lesson: we have to fight global warming and we have to have intelligent climate policies,” EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told Bloomberg TV in an interview from Brussels. “That means getting out of fossil fuels, elimination of subsidies to fossil fuels, developing clean energy and renewables and increasing energy efficiency.”
A weekend drone attack on the Saudi Aramco installations, which the U.S. has blamed on Iran, highlighted the vulnerability of the world’s most important exporter and added further political risk to prices.
Climate has risen to the top of the EU political agenda, with 93% of Europeans seeing global warming as a serious problem, according to a recent survey by the European Commission. The commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed last year that the region reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century, a goal that is currently debated by national governments.
Incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that protecting the environment is our “generation’s defining task.” If left unchecked, a temperature increase of 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 Fahrenheit) could cause 190 billion euros ($210 billion) in damages across the EU’s nations, a net loss of 1.8% of output, and 200,000 heat-related deaths, according to an EU analysis that looked at the 2071-2100 time horizon.
For now, oil accounts for almost a third of Europe’s primary energy consumption and nearly 90% of the fuel is imported. Saudi Arabia was the fifth-biggest source after Russia, Norway, Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to EU data for 2017.
“We are still heavily dependent on oil even if we are on a path to become a climate neutral economy by 2050,” Canete said. “We have to diversify sources and fuels.”
Read More: Saudi Attacks May Spur Energy Shift to Gas, Renewables: Investec
The EU currently has a binding goal of cutting greenhouse gases at least 40% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels and is crafting stronger policies to counter the more frequent heat waves, storms and floods tied to global warming.
Canete has estimated the 2030 target can be exceeded, putting Europe in a position to submit a more ambitious plan under the Paris Agreement to fight global warming. The bloc’s member states have stopped short of such a move so far.
The Paris deal called on nations to work toward capping global temperature increases since pre-industrial times to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and acknowledges the need to strive for 1.5 degrees. That would still be the quickest shift in the climate since the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. Without deeper cuts in greenhouse gases, the world is on track for warming of at least double the targeted pace.
To ensure countries worldwide make good on their Paris pledges and step up efforts to reduce emissions, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a summit on Sept. 23 in New York. It will be attended by world leaders and activists such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who arrived in New York earlier this month in a zero-carbon emissions sailing boat.
--With assistance from Viktoria Dendrinou.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at ekrukowska@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Andrew Reierson
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