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<div class="csl-entry">Peyker, U. J. (2009). <i>The role of energy efficiency within the EU’s energy and climate change package</i> [Master Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://resolver.obvsg.at/urn:nbn:at:at-ubtuw:1-33757</div>
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The European Energy Policy has entered a new era. Driven by concerns about Europe's longterm energy security and warnings about global warming, the European Union has recently launched an integrated Energy and Climate Change Package. This thesis provides an ex-ante evaluation of the policies that constitute the Energy and Climate Change Package with regard to reaching the ambitious targets for the share of renewables and for energy efficiency: 20% renewable energies and 20% less energy consumption by the year 2020. The potential for renewables is as yet far from being exploited, providing a sound rationale for concerted efforts focusing on supply-side measures to promote the expansion of renewable energy sources. The historical legacy of Europe's electricity markets supports continued state intervention. This thesis however argues that the policy agenda fails to give energy efficiency sufficient attention and that there is an inherent misperception about the factual nature of energy efficiency. Simplistic assumptions about energy efficiency have led to a partially inadequate policy design that exacerbates the risk of the EU falling short of the ambitious targets contained in the Energy and Climate Change Package. Even assuming low overall macroeconomic rebound effects, decreasing rates of energy intensity alone cannot buffer the decline in domestic production. Four main categories of barriers are identified: financial and market impediments, political and regulatory obstacles, cultural and behavioural barriers and aesthetic and environmental challenges. Compared to a set of related policy benchmarks it could not be proved that there is a conceptual neglect of energy efficiency within the current legislative framework, yet both the direction and the potential momentum of the policies are questionable. Price signals are the single most important cause both for investments in energy efficiency and electricity from renewable sources of energy. However, the two most pressing policies - removing subsidies for conventional energies and pricing electricity accurately - are not sufficiently touched on by the Energy and Climate Change Package. It is concluded that energy conservation on a macro level has to be placed at the top of the political agenda, but that cannot occur without seriously discussing strategies about de-growing
en
dc.language
English
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en
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dc.rights.uri
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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dc.title
The role of energy efficiency within the EU's energy and climate change package