Throw a frog into boiling water, the story goes, and it will jump out. But if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated it will not perceive the danger and will be boiled to death.

This is just what is happening to the draft Energy Efficiency Directive. Each successive amendment from the European Council weakens the text a little more. Now the Council’s version – a compilation of the most unambitious points from each member state – has almost reached junk status.

Already last year – before the directive’s release in June 2011 – the Council had pressured the Commission into proposing a number of loosely-linked binding measures instead of a binding overall 20% target (which Commission analysis shows would have been the best option).

Since then the Council has been steadily watering down all the main measures in the directive – especially the 3% renovation rate for public buildings and the measure with the highest savings potential: the 1.5% annual savings target.

Council amendments started by specifying that the 3% renovation rate for public buildings should initially only apply to surface areas over 500m2. This excludes, for example, most social housing in the UK. So those most in need of better insulated and cheaper-to-run homes would be left out.

Some weeks later the Council proposed that only ‘Central Government Authorities’ should be covered by the 3% target. In Germany this narrows the scope of the target to around 30 buildings.

Meanwhile, the Council is squeezing the 1.5% annual savings target from all sides. First, by reducing its scope: the 1.5% target covers final energy – the energy used by businesses and consumers after it has been transformed into electricity, or refined into petrol or diesel. The Commission had already excluded the transport sector (the European Parliament, rightly, wants it back in). But now the Council wants to exempt 40% of the industries covered by the EU Emissions Trading System. If allowed, this means only half of the EU’s final energy use would be covered by the 1.5% target.

Second, the Council wishes to revise the 1.5% target downwards. Its latest amendments call for a gradual phase in of “1.0% in 2014 and 2015, 1.25% in 2016 and 2017 and 1.5% in 2018, 2019 and 2020”. This would reduce projected savings over the 2014-2020 period by about 14-15%.

Then there is the quality of the savings. The Council – led by Austria – is pushing for ‘early actions’ to allow member states to credit savings made before the introduction of the directive. Picture the reactions if a government sought to correct a budget deficit by statistically transferring the effects of previous economic measures. Yet this is standard Council practice for energy savings. Based on past experience with the 2006 Energy Services Directive this could slash the 1.5% target to around 1%.

Some member states also wish to credit ‘future actions’. This would allow savings to be credited before they have actually been delivered – meaning that each year’s 1.5% target would actually be delivered over a 5-25 year timeframe. Real annual savings would be just a fraction of the claimed savings.

Finally, there is the strong Council pressure to allow member states to “fulfil up to 20% of the [1.5% target] through energy savings achieved in the energy transformation sector” (i.e. power plants). This is bad for two reasons. The first is that the 1.5% target is intended to reduce energy consumption by businesses and consumers, not to make energy production more efficient. That was the task of other measures in the directive (which have also been watered down).

The second reason is more serious. If this amendment goes through, member states could meet the 20% contribution simply by fulfilling their 2020 renewable energy target obligations. Producing electricity from wind and solar energy is far more efficient than fossil fuel and nuclear generation (there are no thermal conversion losses from wind and solar). But the benefits of switching to renewables are already factored into estimates of the EU’s likely energy savings by 2020. These estimates – which the Council agrees with – show existing legislation is not enough to meet the EU’s 20% by 2020 energy savings target. There is a gap, which the Energy Efficiency Directive must close. It will not do so by counting savings that will happen anyway.

So the frog is slowly being boiled. But the good news is that the boiling frog anecdote is not actually true – frogs will jump out of the water, even when gradually heated. Will EU policymakers be similarly wise?

Alarm bells are starting to be heard. A recent paper from the Commission estimates that “the impact of the Council version would represent 38% of the expected impact of the Commission’s proposal”. And of course the Commission’s own proposal is not tough enough to close the savings gap and meet the 2020 savings target (only the European Parliament’s version would do so).

It is not too late to stop and think. Official negotiations with the European Parliament and Commission on the final text of the directive are still in their early stages. Governments repeatedly insist on the need to cut carbon emissions, save money, create jobs and reduce energy imports. A strong Energy Efficiency Directive is their best chance to do so.

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

On 8 April climate change minister Greg Barker told the Financial Times “We are working patiently and quietly behind the scenes with EU partners to convince them of the strong economic as well as environmental reasons why we should go for 30 per cent [greenhouse gas emission cuts] rather than 20 per cent”.

Barker hopes to win his case in a meeting of EU environment ministers this Thursday (19 April) in Denmark. Good for him. But there is a catch. Barker’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is just as patiently and quietly working to weaken a proposal for tougher EU energy savings legislation. This proposal – the draft Energy Efficiency Directive – will also be debated in Denmark.

Leaked copies of official comments are clear proof of the UK’s opposition. It is rejecting proposals to make the EU’s 20% by 2020 energy savings target legally binding – despite experience with greenhouse gas and renewable targets showing such targets to be the most effective solution. It is blocking mandatory audits and follow-up energy efficiency improvements for businesses. And in a farcical spy games twist, the UK is also opposing widespread renovations for public buildings on the grounds of public security (see the full story from Reuters).

Analysis from the European Commission – which UK climate officials say they agree with – shows the EU needs to meet its 20% by 2020 energy savings target to achieve higher greenhouse gas cuts. The reason? Fossil fuels still account for 80% of the EU’s energy use. So using less energy is the most effective way to cut emissions.  At present rates, however, only 10% savings are expected; the draft Energy Efficiency Directive is supposed to close the gap.

So the UK is going to Denmark to lobby for a 30% greenhouse gas target while opposing the policy which can do most to cut emissions. Hardly a victory for joined-up thinking.

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

We call it salami tactics: the EU Council is cutting away the Energy Efficiency Directive slice by slice. One tactic is to count savings made prior to the directive’s implementation (see our story on ‘early action’). Another is to credit savings before they have actually been achieved.

How this works: several member states are trying to set the 1.5% target in Article 6 so that each year’s required savings would actually be delivered over a 15-25 year timeframe. This means that real annual savings would be just a fraction of the official savings reported to the Commission.

We’re still not sure exactly how many member states are in favour of this definition of ‘lifetime savings’. But it seems the UK is one of them. This at least is what officials from the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) told us in a meeting in London on March 21st.  See below for our follow up email to Tom Bastin, Sarah Meagher and James Acord, three of the DECC officials leading the UK’s work on the directive.

Our figures are in terawatt hours. 1000 TWh are equivalent to 85 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe). See IEA conversion table

“Dear Tom, Sarah, James,

Thanks again for a very interesting meeting on Wednesday. We’re writing to follow up the discussion on the 1.5% target in Article 6 and in particular the lifetime savings model you described.

If our understanding of your lifetime model is correct then we’re seriously concerned that the statistical savings are totally disconnected from the real savings. Your point – if we understood it correctly – is that each year’s target does not have to be met by real savings delivered in that year. Instead, measures would be put in place that would deliver the savings over their whole lifetime.

As the Commission puts it in their non-paper, this means “claiming savings that will, in reality, not materialise for many years to come”.

Let’s try this out with some numbers:

The UK’s final energy consumption (minus transport) is very roughly 1000 TWh / year. In order to meet the 1.5% target the UK would have to achieve 1^st year savings of 15 TWh. According to the method you described in the meeting these 15TWh would be met by installing measures that over their lifetime would deliver 15TWh. Assuming a lifetime of 20 years this means the real 1^st year savings would actually be 1/20 of 15 TWh = 0.75 TWh.

If this is your understanding of the 1.5% target then we have some serious problems. The most obvious is that the benefits that result from energy savings would be lost. Take GHG reductions: savings of 15TWh roughly correspond to 3 million tons of CO2 equivalent. But savings of 0.75 TWh are the equivalent of just 0.15 MT CO2e. A huge difference – especially given the scientific case for large short term GHG reductions.

Please get back to us as soon as possible on this issue! Our position: a 1^st year target of 15 TWh must be met with 15 TWh real on-the-ground savings in that year”.

Does DECC fully realise the implications of what it’s calling for? We’re still waiting for their reply. The point is that if accounting tricks to meet the 1.5% target are disastrous for greenhouse gas emission cuts, they’re equally bad for cost savings and energy imports. Salami tactics indeed.

By Brook Riley and Erica Hope

Member States are rightly shunned by their peers for getting creative with budget deficit figures. So why is there so much support from national governments to apply the same methods to the EU’s draft Energy Efficiency Directive?

Leaked documents from European Council meetings show that at least 12 out of 27 Member States are seeking to include ‘early actions’ in the Directive. If successful, they would be allowed to credit savings made before the implementation of the Directive (hence ‘early action’).

Why is this so important? At present rates the EU will only reduce its energy use by 9% in 2020, missing its 20% savings target by over half. Logically, all new legislation and measures to save energy have to be additional to existing polices – otherwise the target won’t be met.

Early action is a bogus way to double count and avoid making additional savings. And there is a worrying precedent: The 2006 Energy Services Directive (‘ESD’, which set annual 1% savings targets) allowed Member States to credit savings from as far back as the mid-1990s. This means only 50% of the energy savings were actually new measures. Ironically, the early action-induced failure of the ESD is one of the main reasons for preparing the new Energy Efficiency Directive.

Figure 1: Meeting the 20% savings target requires a combination of new and existing measures

Figure 2: Crediting early action allows Member States to reduce the amount of new, additional savings

Figure 3: Real energy savings assuming 50% double counting from early action (the level allowed by the 2006 Energy Services Directive)

Early action is especially damning when we look at the benefits the 20% savings target is expected to deliver: cost savings of over €200 billion per year, reduced dependency on oil and gas imports and a higher CO2 reduction target. The crucial point is that Member States crediting early action will statistically meet their energy savings goals. But their real savings will be much lower – and so will CO2 reductions and savings on energy bills. This is fraudulent accounting.

Note to Permanent Representations

Countries which have done a lot to save energy in recent years understandably want this to be recognised in the Energy Efficiency Directive. It is fair to take past efforts into account when allocating binding national targets that demonstrably add up to the overall 20% objective. This is what happened with the 20% renewable energy targets. But early action must not be allowed to undermine central measures in the Energy Efficiency Directive – as Member States are trying to do with the 1.5% annual savings target in Article 6. To do so would lead to the consistent and deliberate misreporting that governments are usually so quick to denounce.

By Brook Riley and Erica Hope

From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (ENER)
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 5:47 PM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX(ENER)
Subject: Last night – efficiency directive and the Commissioner

Dear XXXXXXXX,

Many thanks for a lovely dinner last night and please tell XXXXXXXX it was delicious as ever. Our place next time!

I hope you didn’t take my remarks about our Commissioner the wrong way. The dinner and the company made me say more than I should have – or say it badly. If so sorry to have been a bore… But in vino veritas; I do stand by what I said about the energy efficiency unit feeling let down by Oettinger.

It started with his opposition to the 30% emissions target in February last year. Why on earth did he splash such a blatant “heavy industry before climate” message across the Guardian? He knows one of the main reasons we need the new efficiency directive is to make 25-30% CO2 cuts possible. Sometimes I wonder what his agenda really is.

Then there was the choice to go for measures instead of binding energy savings targets in the June directive proposal. OK, I know Member States didn’t (don’t) like targets. But – call me naïve – isn’t it our business to stand up for our own analysis? Why bother with impact assessments if the recommendations are dismissed? It’s not just that we didn’t propose targets – it’s no secret the measures are watered down versions of what we’d assessed were needed. We’ve given in to the Council at every turn. Just look at the energy company obligations in Article 6 and how they were gutted by the opt-out.

What kind of leadership is that? We’ve been left with a weak proposal which we knew would get pulled apart even further by the Council (and believe me that’s just what’s happening in the Working Parties). You’ve got to agree it’s bad tactics to open negotiations by asking for less than you hope to get. Like going to a strip poker session wearing underpants, as Turmes said in Parliament…

In 12 months the only person to have really stuck his neck out on this is Philip. I could have hugged him when he told the Council they can’t say no to targets and measures – and that they’d better make up their minds fast. But if the Commissioner had done his job it wouldn’t have been left to him to say this.

Sorry if I’m sounding angry… but better to be frank I think. As a Commission our credibility is undermined if those at the top don’t back up what our analyses show are needed. Negotiations between the Parliament and the Council are starting soon – and we’re supposed to play the ‘honest broker’. I hope we start doing a better job. So far I can’t help feeling we’ve been very convincing on why Europe needs to save energy, but inexcusably weak on policies to deliver the benefits.

Do what you can about this, will you? And see you at the club tomorrow.

XXXXXXXX

Publisher’s Note

The legislative fight on the draft Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) is entering its most critical stage. On February 28 the EU Parliament’s energy committee voted for ambitious amendments to the Commission’s proposal. Negotiations with the Council should begin before the end of the month. Striking a deal will not be easy: the Parliament is supportive while the Council has taken a more negative position. It will fall to the Danish Presidency to broker a deal between the two parties – with the support of the European Commission, whose business is to get what is best for Europe. But judging by its performance so far, can it really be trusted to do this?

Sometimes it would be interesting to know what DG Energy staff really think about the Directive they have put forward. This ‘email’ – not a real one unfortunately but 100% based on meetings and reports over the past year – gives a taste..

Posted by Brook Riley and Erica Hope

Editor’s note: The latest fashion in the debate on the energy efficiency directive is to call for energy intensity targets (i.e. the number of units of energy used to create a unit of GDP) instead of the established 20% reduction in energy consumption.

It is important to be aware of the vested interests behind this move – and we hope that these ‘leaked extracts’ from an unnamed MEP’s private diary will shed some light on the matter!

Private diary of Centre Right MEP X.

Monday 21 November

Don’t remember much about today. I got back from the constituency very late and was in my office first thing this morning after a fairly sleepless night. T. and I spent some time reviewing what the papers said about my speech, and congratulating ourselves on our success.

Thinking over what B.H. told me about the impact he reckons the energy efficiency directive would have on the local coal industry. One of my closest friends. Always refreshing to hear his views and so pleasing to be in a position to help.

Tuesday 22 November

Felt much more energetic today, and also saw S. for the first time since I’d been back – very pleasant!

Challenging meeting this morning with L.O and my adviser S.M to prepare for the energy efficiency directive hearing on the 29th. Thomassen from Nordic Sugar cancelled and we had to nominate a replacement in a hurry – a professor from Magdeburg.

We discussed the energy savings targets v/s intensity debate. Worrying. ALDE and S&D don’t look like giving up the standard 20% target definition. They’re saying it takes a reduction in energy use to cut energy imports, fuel bills, carbon emissions etc – and that an intensity target won’t guarantee this. Difficult to refute.

BUT BDI and Business Europe really want this turned around- as if they don’t know I’m already doing all I can! Would help if they could stop talking vaguely about relocations and tell their Berlin economics people to give us some solid data. Otherwise we’ll be fighting for intensity targets but with no proof that this would be any better for competitiveness than the standard savings target. We also have no strategy to allocate the targets to each member state. Risks making us look like fools.

L.O and S.M were also worried about that and the meeting wasn’t going anywhere until I got really firm and decisive. Told them that:

• Whatever happens we’ll definitely be proposing a new target based on energy intensity. Was looking through Eurostat on the way back on Sunday: EU energy intensity has improved 30% since 1990 but that didn’t stop energy consumption increasing 10% over the same period. Good. Much less pressure to replace our nuclear with unreliable wind or solar – we can stick to the proven coal/gas mix.
• An intensity target means fewer conceptual constraints for our industry friends – and that’s what we want. BUT we’ll need clever messaging because this way energy consumption will – hopefully! – not be too affected. The opposition will of course start pulling the heart-strings with the lower energy use = lower energy bills argument. AND they’ll say that potentially letting energy demand increase means finding more money for energy infrastructure – and that consumers will have to pay the bill. Ja ja… Too bad! But there’s no denying it’s a communications problem. Told S.M to come up with an answer. Confident we can put a positive spin on it by Tuesday.

Wednesday 23 November

Wunderbar! Won the sweepstake with ECR on the total number of amendments to C.T’s report… Record 1810 amendments in the end – 600 more than for the Renewable Energy Directive.

Posted by Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

Picture this: the doorbell rings and you aren’t expecting visitors.There’s a bright eyed boy standing outside with ‘salesman’ written all over him. Thank goodness, you don’t see any of the outward signs of the zealous evangelist. No short sleeved white shirt with a name tag, no brochure-laden black rucksack. Besides, they always travel in pairs. Curiosity finally gets the better of you. He tells you he’s here to talk about your energy use.

It’s definitely a quirky concept. His company wants to do an energy audit and – at its own expense – pay for new windows, wall insulation and other measures to cut down energy consumption. Let’s assume, for example, that you’re spending €200 a month on heating and electricity use. He offers to knock 15% off that. And you don’t have to pay anything.

At this point most of us would be getting suspicious. Why the sudden generosity? What’s in it for him? And we’d be right – up to a point. The idea behind those ‘ESCOs’ (energy service companies) is that they guarantee, say, a 15% reduction in bills but actually save much more. Up to 50% or even 70%, depending on the building. The difference between the guaranteed savings and the real savings goes to reimburse the ESCOs’ investment and pay them a profit.

Nice one! But if it’s good for them it suits us customers too. Many of us simply don’t have the spare cash to replace, for instance, an energy guzzling oil boiler with a heat pump, or to upgrade wall and roof insulation. And even if we have the means, we often don’t retrofit our homes anyway. There’s no time, we don’t have the knowhow, or it’s just too much hassle to do more than cosmetic improvements. ESCOs can break the inertia and front the money to get things moving.

Now for some political moralising. The Commission’s draft Directive on Energy Efficiency is currently being debated by the European Parliament and the Member States. Its Article 6 (link) aims to revolutionize the ESCO market by obliging energy companies to save energy. Support it! Strengthen it! Think it over, and you’ll see that Article 6 is really about encouraging energy companies to change their business models and start making money by selling energy services. In other words, to make ESCOs of them.

It’s a policy that adds up. At present, ESCOs mostly retrofit public buildings or help companies develop smarter energy management systems. Much more has to be done to extend the model and cut down household energy use (40% of Europe’s energy consumption – most of which has to imported – and 36% of its CO2 emissions).Giving energy companies a share of the task is a clever and inclusive solution. It’s too much to expect them to support energy savings legislation if it just means selling less electricity and gas. But offer them an exciting new market and they would be fools to turn it down.

Enough said… But next time you get an unexpected knock on the door, be less cagey about opening it. It might be your local ESCO.

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

“We shouldn’t invest in energy efficiency because it’s bad for economic growth”, claims Markus Pieper, MEP. All right, he was speaking in German and maybe the EU Parliament’s interpreters were having a tough day. But they can’t have got it completely wrong.  He did say saving energy is a bad thing.

What an unhelpful remark. Mr Pieper’s opinions are important, because he is the European People Party’s lead MEP on the Energy Efficiency Directive. And the EPP of course are the top boys in the EU Parliament at the moment, with a third of the seats.  So presumably lots of people are now equally misinformed.

Still – fair’s fair – he was simply repeating a common misunderstanding. Most of us instinctively associate energy efficiency with “rationing” (that dreaded word) and believe it is diametrically opposed to growth.

Not true. Saving energy will speed up economic recovery, not hinder it. Defending EU Commission analyses is not something any NGO watchdog does gladly, but there is a time and a place for everything. The Commission has built up a solid case that saving energy is good for economic growth, jobs, the environment and lots of other important things. They call it “less is more” and reckon, for instance, that the 20% by 2020 energy savings target will save Europe €200 billion every year.

Let’s put that number into perspective. Le Monde recently added up the French government’s emergency economy measures for 2012. They came to annual savings of €11 billion. Now set this against France’s fair share of the €200 billion: more than two times more at €25 billion per year.

It’s common sense really, and Mr Pieper should have the savvy to see it.  Improving Europe’s energy efficiency means cutting oil and gas import bills (we import over half of our energy). It means spending less to run a business and heat a house. Remember Michael Douglas’s famous line in Wall Street? He said “Greed is good, ladies and gentlemen”. Twisted morals, maybe, but it fits. Spending less on energy means more money for other, more exciting or more useful things. Therefore we need to do everything we can to chase down energy efficiency opportunities. It’s as simple as that.

Time to think again, Mr Pieper. Surely a competitive Europe is something to strive for regardless of your political colours?

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

How could anyone not wish to cut their energy bill? If like us you’re struggling on a measly NGO salary you would jump at the chance of lower bills. So would everybody with a grain of common sense. It means more money for – for what actually? We asked around. If your energy bill was cut by €100 a month, what would you do with the money? Some said they would save it (that was the NGOs); others wanted to spend it in a fancy restaurant. Others (the expats) would hop on a high speed train and go see their folks. Another – our favourite – plumped for buying a dog. Not just any dog you understand, but a car-chasing-death-defying border collie.

The point is that saving on bills is a good thing for consumers, and for businesses too. It’s an absolute no brainer that if you’re running a business then energy saving solutions are bound to be welcome – especially in today’s tough times. According to the European Commission, lopping 20% of the EU’s energy use by 2020 would save €200 billion every year by 2020. That breaks down to €1000 per year per household. Lots of good meals out.

But here’s the problem. However much it pays to use less energy, it certainly doesn’t suit the companies who sell the stuff. They have traditionally lobbied hard to block the mandatory energy savings target that experts say is needed to drive down energy use and consumer costs. And they have governments tied up in knots. The UK, for instance, is in the process of allowing power companies to push through a punishing 20% price increase that risks pushing millions into fuel poverty.

So who do you think wrote this statement? “Make the 20% EU efficiency target (by 2020) binding and break it down to national targets. Make it coherent to the policies related to emissions reduction and expansion of renewable energy”.

It wasn’t penned by the European Commission. Officials there recommend binding targets in internal analyses but chicken out in public. Believe it or not, the authors were the CEOs from energy giants Vattenfall and EnBW, as well as a number of other big industry bosses (you can see the full statement here; a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions is also recommended).

Energy companies breaking ranks? No need to say this is a political game changer. And yet… the statement makes good business sense: Europe’s environmental and resource challenges are such that Vattenfall, EnBW and their brethren cannot stick to selling kilowatts and gas. They need to diversify. The car industry for instance makes more money servicing than selling vehicles. Energy companies must make the same switch, by offering energy management services and getting involved in buildings renovation. Some are doing so already, and this suits us consumers.

Still to be seen, however, is what Messrs Tuomo Hatakka and Hans-Peter Villis – the CEOs concerned – are prepared to do in support of their statement for a binding efficiency target. Any chance of a lobby trip to Brussels this autumn?

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)

It’s a summer whodunit. The European Commission’s Energy Efficiency Directive has been public since June 22. But why was the headline policy – an obligation on power companies to cut customers’ energy use – so abruptly dropped from the final text?

Commissioner Oettinger and DG Energy had already overruled internal analyses showing that only binding targets for each member state would deliver the 20% by 2020 efficiency target. They had refused to look into the crucial question of financing. The energy company obligation was the only meaningful policy left. Its gutsy concept to convince utilities to invest in efficiency services (smart heating systems, say, or insulation) could have saved customers at least €60 billion a year, slashed CO2 emissions and created over 500,000 new jobs.

Then came the sell out. On June 14 Mr Oettinger announced to an audience of Europe’s leading power company CEOs that he was “sorry that energy efficiency is one binding commitment which Member States have refused to endorse”. Did this mean he would be pushing mandatory energy company obligations as a substitute to binding targets? Maybe – but in any event the backlash was overwhelming. BDEW, the powerful German energy association representing utility giants RWE, E.ON and EnBW, came out strongly against the Commission’s proposals; German economics minister Philip Rosler joined them, publicly condemning the directive just before its release.

Meanwhile there were challenges of another kind in Brussels. Reducing energy use cuts CO2 emissions faster and more effectively than the EU’s Emissions Trading System. A good thing for the planet, this is perversely seen as a bug in the system for carbon market hardliners at the Commission’s climate department. On June 16, Commissioner Hedegaard’s head of cabinet Peter Vis went to the press criticising the impact energy efficiency might have on CO2 permit prices.

Matters came to a head on the afternoon of Monday June 20. At a special chief of cabinets meeting brokered by President Barroso’s office, Mr Oettinger agreed to a reference on CO2 price impacts but granted a fatal opt out clause on the energy company obligations by downgrading them to voluntary status. It feels like a trade off, although it’s difficult to say exactly who is responsible. Mr Oettinger folded far too easily, reneging on his earlier claim that “binding measures need to be strengthened and amplified”. Certain senior officials in the climate department foolishly made efficiency look like a problem, energy companies did their usual worst and member states were unhelpful throughout. But one thing is certain: the long-awaited Energy Efficiency Directive has been gutted.

By Brook Riley (Friends of the Earth Europe) and Erica Hope (Climate Action Network Europe)