It’s almost mid-January in Brussels and there has not been a single frost in the city. People are shedding their winter coats, trees are sprouting leaves; a rose made an appearance in my garden last week. It doesn’t take a climatalogical genius to realise something is going on, and at long last Europe’s policymakers seem to be taking it seriously.

As recently as last May, José Manuel Barroso did not even mention climate change as one of his top priorities; now it is the cornerstone of almost everything the European Commission does, and is at the heart of Wednesday’s announcement of a new EU energy policy.

There is a lot of politics in this. Mr Barroso sees climate change as a new political cause for the EU - an area where few could dispute that action at a European level makes sense. There is also neat symmetry: 50 years ago energy was at the heart of the European Coal and Steel Community,  which paved the way for today’s EU.

But will the piles of documents produced by Mr Barroso today have an impact in the real world? My bet is that this time, Europe will take action - although inevitably not enough - to clean up its act, increase energy efficiency and boost the use of renewable energy sources.

This is one case where environmental concern and economics converge. Europe’s dependency on imported oil and gas from Russia looks even more precarious in the light of the current dispute between Moscow and Belarus.

Europe also has an edge in renewable technologies: the industry already employs 200,000 people and has a turnover of 10bn euros. And through the power of EU energy efficiency regulations it can impose its green priorities on any company which wants to trade with Europe.

Of course this requires a global effort. But even George W Bush seems to be getting the message. You suspect, like Mr Barroso, it is economics and politics which is moving the US president, just as much as the plight of the polar bear.

January 9th, 2007 in Energy | Permalink