WWF Earth Hour 2015: Why Europe should reduce its energy consumption all year long

Every year WWF organises Earth hour, an initiative launched in 2007 and aiming at raising awareness about climate change and on the necessity to save energy and our natural resources.  

For the Greens in the European Parliament, energy saving is one of the most important battles in the EU institutions. The group has always fought to ensure that as much energy as possible is saved.

Indeed, the arguments in favour of energy saving are numerous. First and foremost, reducing energy use helps fighting against climate change. If we want to keep a chance to maintain global warming within the limits of two degrees by the end of the century, we must urgently cut our greenhouse gas emissions. And the biggest potential for doing so is to consume less energy! In 2013, 40% of the energy we consume in Europe is aimed to warm (in winter) and cool (in summer) our houses. In parallel, transport represents 31% of our CO2 emissions. It means we need to save energy to save the planet. By better isolating our houses and shifting to a greener transport system, we help reaching our climate goal.

Reducing our consumption also helps us to reduce our trade deficit. In 2013, the EU spent EUR 421 billion to buy energy from abroad, mostly gas from Russia. This amount is equivalent to nearly EUR 1.2 billion per day; or EUR 1,200 for each inhabitant of the European Union! Reducing our consumption is the only way to cut our dependency to Russian gas and to stop depending on the goodwill of Putin and Gazprom.

Energy savings also enables us to reduce our energy bills. Today, energy poverty is affecting some 50-125 million EU citizens. This means that between 14 to 36% of the population is having difficulties to pay their electricity and gas bills, or can't properly warm their house. A better insulation of the housing stock, together with more efficient appliances and a smarter way to consume energy (for example avoid using the washing machine during demand peaks) would allow all of us gaining purchase power.

Another advantage would be the creation of a big number of jobs. In a context of economic downturn, energy efficiency is a sector leading to job creation. Builders, craftsmen, installers, architects, engineers... we need more of them to renovate houses, design sober appliances and sober cars, install efficient equipment. It is acknowledged that up to 2 million jobs could be created in the area of energy efficiency measures alone by 2020 and possibly another 2 million jobs by 2030. For each million euro invested in savings measures about 17 jobs are created.

Energy saving is also positive for our EU companies.  Energy and resources represent 20 to 50% of overall production costs for the manufacturing industry. For geological and structural reasons, Europe will always have higher electricity and gas prices than major competitors like US or China. Hence if we improve the energy and resource efficiency of our manufacturing processes, EU industry will remain cost-competitive to sell products on the world market.

Finally - last but not least - Energy efficiency is a true European project. Solidarity must continue to be at the core of the European project. For historical reasons, economies from Central and Eastern Europe are still quite inefficient. To produce one unit of GDP, you need to consume eight times more energy in Bulgaria than in Denmark. Energy efficiency helps these economies to converge and reduces macro-economic imbalance.

This are some of the main reasons why the Greens will continue doing their utmost to convince other EU policy makers on the importance of increasing energy saving energy this weekend during Earth Hour, but also all year long. Time for energy saving to now become the norm in Europe!