Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

Bulgaria's lawmakers have voted to roll back plans to decarbonise the country's energy sector.

The move came on Thursday after as more than 1,500 miners and utility workers demonstrated in front of the parliament in support of the coal industry. They were protesting against plans for an early phase-out of coal-fired power plants.

The targets of the new climate protection law are ambitious. For example, CO2-emissions from the energy industry must fall to 108 in 2030 instead of 175 million metric tons (Mt) as previously planned. Energy Brainpool’s latest modelling shows that such a reduction can only be achieved with an early coal phase-out. In this article, we take you through the key findings of the calculations.

After the Federal Constitutional Court declared the previous Climate Protection Law partially unconstitutional at the end of April 2021, things suddenly moved very quickly. As a result, the federal cabinet passed an amendment to the Climate Protection Law just two weeks later on May 12, 2021.

Within a pilot project for incentives for households in Sarajevo Canton to abandon coal and other solid fuels in heating, 77 beneficiaries were selected for subsidies to install certified units that use wood pellets and 27 applicants will get grants for setting up heat pumps.

Alors que la centrale thermique du Havre vient de fermer, « King Coal » n’a pas dit son dernier mot. En effet, les solutions alternatives au minerai, essentiel à la fabrication de l’acier et du ciment, sont soit inexistantes soit trop onéreuses, note Philippe Escande, éditorialiste économique au « Monde ».

The European Commission has expressed doubts about a planned €4.35 billion compensation scheme for German energy companies, agreed as part of the country’s plan to phase out coal by 2038, saying the sums involved are “likely to constitute state aid” under EU law.

Over 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU come from coal-fired energy generation. 18 EU countries still use coal for electricity production. The argument goes that the phasing out of coal threatens the livelihoods of coal workers and their regional economy. But it should be the opposite, argue Elif Gündüzyeli and Jörg Mühlenhoff at CAN Europe. Coal regions are ideally suited for new gigawatt-scale wind and solar. They already have the electricity infrastructure, and they have the land availability. They also have the workers ready for re-skilling. It’s a strategy that has the makings of a Just Transition.

La centrale au charbon de Sines au Portugal a été mise hors service hier soir (14 janvier) à minuit, laissant le Portugal avec une seule centrale au charbon en activité, dont la fermeture est prévue pour novembre.

With your support, we've had some big wins against coal in 2020

2020 has brought unique and unprecedented challenges socially and economically. It has changed the way we all work now and in the future but while life at ClientEarth has looked very different this year, we can’t and won’t ignore the climate crisis ahead of us.

We’ve continued to fight – and win - against polluting coal across Europe and have begun working with partners across Asia to highlight the environmental, financial and legal risks of continuing to invest in coal. Here are some of the things you’ve helped us achieve:

L'Allemagne lance deux projets phare de sa transition énergétique. Elle lance la facturation de chaque tonne de CO2 émise par les transports et les habitations et la sortie progressive du charbon avec la fermeture d'une 1ère unité de centrale thermique. Dans les deux cas, ces mesures sont le fruit de longues négociations politiques de la coalition d'Angela Merkel, sous la pression des défenseurs du climat qui jugent que les décisions ne sont pas assez ambitieuses.

The world needs a “radical” shift towards renewables to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and secure the 1.5C goal, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).

This would see renewable energy overtake coal by 2026, passing oil and gas before 2030. By 2050, it should go on to meet two-thirds of global energy supply and nearly 90% of electricity generation.

In May 2019, the largest mining towns in Ukraine came together to form the Platform for Sustainable Development of Coal Towns of Donetsk Region. They are currently developing their joint transformation strategy for a just transition. Meanwhile, in May 2020, the national government established the Coordination Center for Transformation of Coal Regions to guide the re-development of mining towns.

It is a unique initiative on a national scale, as citizens and other city stakeholders are involved in planning the city’s development strategy and then implementing it together.
As the residents are the beating heart of this transformation, the Deep Listening method, brought from the Mondragon Valley in the Basque Country, was used to co-create a long-term vision of Rybnik’s future with them. This method involved a series of in-depth interviews with residents and a complex process of analysis. Deep Listening is a key methodology to foster more effective collective action for social change.

The European Parliament has rejected proposals to phase out free CO2 pollution credits for industries covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), even as the bloc plans to gradually replace the scheme with a carbon levy at its border.

The Secretariat of a new initiative to help coal regions in the Western Balkans and Ukraine transition away from coal towards a carbon-neutral economy has been launched by the European Commission. Mirroring the successful EU Initiative for coal regions in transition, the newly established secretariat will deliver support to coal regions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo[1], Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. 17 regions with significant coal mining activities and coal-based energy production will be the key beneficiaries. The initiative’s secretariat will provide direct support for its implementation and ensure collaboration across the diversity of institutions and actors that the initiative will engage.

While Czech coal mining regions supply heat and electricity to the whole country, local people are often unable to afford heating their own homes, researchers say. More broadly, Czechia is struggling to meet its EU reporting obligations on energy poverty, an issue common to other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Since 2019, Spain has been ahead of the curve with the launch of a Just Transition Strategy to protect its historic coal mining regions from the impacts of decarbonisation. Rosa Martínez examines the uptake of just transition in public policy and where the affected regions find themselves today. Progress is encouraging, but accelerating processes of digitalisation and automation mean that it is time to bring the notion of just transition up to speed so it can offer future-proof solutions in a world where employment is increasingly precarious.

Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority

The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 January), leaving the country with just one remaining coal power station in operation, which is scheduled for closure in November.

Portuguese energy utility EDP announced its decision to shut down the 1,296 MW Sines coal plant in July last year, bringing the closure forward by two years – from 2023 to 2021. EDP’s initial plans were to close Sines in 2030.

The decision is “part of EDP group’s decarbonisation strategy” and was taken in a context where energy production increasingly depends on renewable sources, the company said back in July.

The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 January), leaving the country with just one remaining coal power station in operation, which is scheduled for closure in November.

EU member states will need to step up their efforts on renewables and energy efficiency in order to meet the bloc's updated climate and energy targets for 2030.