Climate change and energy security in Europe: policy integration and its limits

Abstract

Climate change and energy will be high on the agenda for the Swedish Presidency 2009, with the common theme of the two policy areas being "an eco-efficient economy".Moreover, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 an attempt will be made to reach a new global climate agreement that will replace the Kyoto Protocol.The present report, Climate Change and Energy Security in Europe: Policy Integration and its Limits, analyses how far the EU is integrating its energy and climate change policies.As an international leader in climate change policy, it is necessary for the EU not only to make sufficient progress in the respective two areas but also to take steps towards better integrating them in the future.Therefore the report focuses on identifying possible synergies and trade-offs between the EU's most recent package of legislative measures to combat climate change and its energy security objectives.The authors conclude, among other things, that energy efficiency should be made a priority to reach both energy security and climate change objectives; that greater effort is needed from EU Member States to ensure that their renewable energy targets are met; and that much more investment in research and development is a necessity, in particular to fund research in non-nuclear energy and energy efficiency projects.