The European Commission has fleshed out details of a plan to ramp up the EU's renewable energy capacity and reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels at the same time acknowledging that existing coal facilities may have to be used for longer.
A document outlining the Commission's aims for the REPowerEU plan was published on Wednesday.
There will be an extra investment of more than 200 billion euros by the year 2027. The Commission wants to increase the share of renewable energy in the EU's energy mix to 45%.
The Commission's proposals came on the same day that the governments ofDenmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium said they would aim for a combined target of at least 65 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030. By the middle of the century, they want to have 150 gig of capacity.
The situation on the fossil fuel front is difficult. According to Eurostat, Russia was the biggest supplier of both oil and gas to the EU last year.
The EU will need to find oil and gas from other parts of the world if it wants to wean itself off Russian oil and gas.
The Commission estimated that 1.5 to 2 billion euros would be needed to secure oil supply. An estimated 10 billion euros will be needed by the year 2030.
The EU wants to be carbon neutral by the year 2050. The EU wants net greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by at least 45% by the year 2030.
The Commission said that REPowerEU could not work without fast implementation of all Fit for 55 proposals and higher targets for renewables and energy efficiency.
In this new reality, gas consumption in the EU would be reduced at a faster pace, limiting the role of gas as a transitional fuel.
Shifting away from Russian fossil fuels will require targeted investments for security of supply in gas infrastructure and very limited changes to oil infrastructure, along with large-scale investments in the electricity grid and an EU-wide hydrogen backbone.
The Commission said that some of the existing coal capacities might also be used longer than expected.
Frans Timmermans, the EU's climate chief, admitted during a press conference on Wednesday that using less natural gas in a transitional phase would have a negative impact.
He said that if you rapidly speed up the introduction of renewable energy, you will have the opposite movement.
The European Commission's executive vice president for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, stressed the importance of finding a middle ground.
He said that if we can reduce our energy consumption in combination with a faster introduction of renewable energy, we will bring down our emissions even quicker.
If people stick a bit longer to coal, we will have slightly higher emissions, but we need to strike the balance so that we don't increase our emissions.
Coal is the dirtiest, most polluting way of producing energy and has a large effect on the environment.
Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulates and nitrogen oxides are some of the pollutants listed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
A number of environmental organizations criticized the European Commission announcement.
The European Commission's latest strategy gives with one hand and takes with the other, according to Eilidh Robb.
Robb said that REPowerEU contains useful and necessary strides towards renewable solutions but it simultaneously enables almost 50 fossil fuel infrastructure projects and expansions.
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