Commenting on the UK’s role in weakening the European Energy Efficiency Directive, agreed late last night between the Danish Presidency and the European Parliament, Friends of the Earth Energy Campaigner Dave Timms said:

"The UK Government played a significant role in weakening the directive by opposing an overall binding energy saving target and insisting on loopholes so it could meet its obligation by claiming credit for old energy efficiency policies.

“Undermining European efforts to promote energy efficiency while proclaiming the benefits at home is both dishonest and damaging - especially from the self-proclaimed ‘greenest Government ever’.

"Introducing ambitious binding energy saving policies and targets would hugely boost European efforts to cut energy bills, reduce our reliance on dirty gas and oil imports and create new jobs and growth.

“The measures in the new directive are a step forward but it falls short of the huge stride a strong treaty would have brought.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. Key points agreed or not agreed by the EU last night include:
 
• Overall the directive is projected to deliver a 15% energy saving compared to projected 2020 primary energy consumption (based on Business As Usual from 2009) this includes all sectors of the economy eg transport and power generation, buildings. This is up from a pre-directive projection of 9% energy saving. For this reason the new directive is obviously a step forward but not enough of one to meet the necessary 20% saving.

• Article 3 – This does not contain an overall binding EU energy saving target of 20% as the European Parliament had been demanding. The UK opposed setting a binding EU 20% target to replace the current non-binding one. It does contain a figure 1474 Mtoe (million tonnes of oil equivalent) for the first time. This is a proper expression of the current non-binding 20% energy saving target. So at least we will now be able to accurately measure by how much the EU is likely to miss its target.

• Article 3a – EU Member States have to produce a long term roadmap to show how they will renovate all buildings. This is a good addition to the Directive, which the European Parliament proposed.

• Article 4 – Is a target to renovate (to increase the energy efficiency) 3% of central government owned and occupied public buildings annually. The UK was instrumental in stopping this applying to all public buildings not just those of central government (eg local authorities). This means only 1% of EU buildings compared with what would have covered over 10% of buildings.

• Article 6  - This is an obligation of member states to apply an obligation on energy suppliers (or other policies of equal value) to make 1.5% annual saving in final energy in the period 2014 to 2020. There are various opt outs which can reduce this by up to 25% - taking it down to 1.1%. However the UK secured a further loophole which means that those members states with an existing supplier obligation (eg the UK with its Carbon Emissions Reduction Target) can claim four years of energy savings from that scheme before 2014 as part of their target and three years predicted saving after 2020. The Danish Presidency and European Parliament would have agreed the Directive without this loophole, but the UK insisted on its inclusion.

• Article 19 – In 2014 there will be a review of where the EU is on track to meet the non-binding overall 20% target. If necessary this will be accompanied by proposals for further measures.