Climate Action & Energy

PPEU - Discussions
#1

Proposol of the german pirate party:

Climate Action:
The Agreement of Paris to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels has to be implemented. [*] The necessary concepts and technologies for achieving the climate protection goal have been developed.The Pirate Party demands to provide the conditions that these technologies are used to achieve this goal.

[*] Reference: Paris 2015 UN Climate Change Conference COP21, adoption of the Paris agreement https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf

Energy:
We want to establish a sustainable and reliable energy infrastructure. The transition away from consumed energy resources to regenerative sources is necessary. Use of energy sources has to be sustainable and must not be in conflict with other environmental objectives. The target is a transparent, decentralized, and redundant structure of energy suppliers. This guarantees participation options for all citizens and prevents monopolies."

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#2

Otherwise what ?
I fully agree that Climate Action is mandatory and urgent (if we are not too late already). But the Agreement of Paris is already more than two years old and nothing has been done. I think that the governments must be compelled one way or another. I think that wishes and sentences are not enough. I think that all next laws and agreements must include clear penalties, strong enough that the governments can have no other choices than following the laws.
That’s why my question is : “Otherwise what ?”

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#3

Hi Relf,

what would you suggest?

In Germany the “institut für Entwicklungspolitik” suggested in an unpublished study for the “Federal Ministry of Ecomonic Affairs and Energy” cash penalties for those countries which did not reach the target.

#4

Unfortunately, this goes beyond my skills. I know that governments tend to not carry out their duties, but i don’t know how to force them to act. (Actually, I despair, because I think there is no way to force a government to do what it doesn’t want to do.)

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#5

The way could be a worldwide agreement.

#6

I would suggest adding the following sentence to the text:

“We can and we have to learn from eachother about energy transition and we have to discuss at eye level to be successful in energy transition worldwide.”

Greetings

Michael

#7

Proposol for the meeting in Barcelona:

The Agreement of Paris to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels has to be implemented. The necessary concepts and technologies for achieving the climate protection goal have been developed.The Pirate Party demands to provide the legal conditions that these technologies are used to achieve this goal.

We want to establish a sustainable and reliable energy infrastructure. The transition away from consumed energy resources to regenerative sources is necessary. Use of energy sources has to be sustainable and must not be in conflict with other environmental objectives. The target is a transparent, decentralized, and redundant structure of energy suppliers. This guarantees participation options for all citizens and prevents monopolies."

We can and we have to learn from eachother about energy transition and we have to discuss at eye level to be successful in energy transition worldwide.

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#8

I think everybody can agree on the statement. The question is, what do we propose ?

The EU did create 1 000 billion euros to save the banks.
Why not do the same to save the planet ?
It is the argument of a non profit french organization : https://climat-2020.eu/en/the-call/

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#9

In germany one of the problems are the regulations for private people when they are using self-generated electricity. This rules must be eliminated

#10

What regulations ? In what sense are they problems, exactly ?
Are the people forbidden to self-generate ? Are the allowed to self-generate, but not allowed to sell or transfer ?

We cannot say “ban the laws” without knowing exactly what we fight against. Besides, i would rather like we propose something and explain how it is a good thing (positivity) than we say “no to this or that” (negativity).

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#11

Up to now people in germany are not allowed to sell self-generated electricity to their neighbours neither to transfer it to them. Additionally they have to pay a cost allocation (EEG-Umlage) if their photovoltaic plant is larger than 10 KWp. The EU is planning to delete this regulation but probably the german government will a period of several years to implement the directive. What ist the situation (regulation) in other european countries?

#12

…they have to pay a cost allocation for their self-consumpted eletricity…

#13

This looks like protectionism which I often do not like. I prefer educating people so that they do right choices by themselves over forcing them, even for right actions (which is not often the case, in protectionism).

Regarding self-generated electricity :
I’m not up to date, so I might be mistaken, but in France, the only option for self-generated electricity is to be sold back to the professional producers. People cannot even use their own production, even less sell it or transfer it to neighbours. Needless to say, the price for this self-generated electricity is not very high.

#14

Feedback (suggestions for the text & questions) in response to previous comments and today’s version of the working document for the ==== Climate Action and Energy ====:

"The UN Paris Agreement from 2015, which intends to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, still has to be implemented [*]. The necessary concepts and technologies to achieve this goal already exist. The Pirate Party demands that legal conditions including stringent penalty clauses are set up to encourage and allow for use of these technologies without unreasonable obstacles.

The Pirate Party insists on establishing a sustainable and reliable energy infrastructure. This necessitates an urgent transition away from non-renewable resources and towards regenerative sources while minimising potential conflicts with other environmental objectives. Our goal is a transparent, decentralized, and redundant??? (N.B. ‘redundant’ does not seem to make sense here; what did you want to say here?) ??? structure of energy suppliers. This guarantees participatory options for all the citizens while reducing the chance of monopolies.

We (Who is ‘we’?: all the different stakeholders? all the different EU countries???, the PP?) have to advance the exchange of knowledge and experience with regards to implementing an effective energy transition. Further, we (???the EU?, the PP?) need to engage at eye-level with non-EU countries worldwide to achieve a globally successful energy transition."

#15

By the way, I strongly recommend to have look at a recent commentary in Nature which suggests applying carbon charges to imports.

This could be a very strong point of our programme if we choose to incorporate the idea. The commentary itself contains good arguments we can then use.

The trade war initiated by Trump creates a window of opportunity to do the right things, and we should emphasise that.

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#16

Only to imports ? Isn’t this some kind of protectionism, more in the direction of economy (and capitalism) than in the direction of ecology ?

#17

“We” means the societies, nations of the EU

#18

Sorry, I expressed myself inaccurately. Of course not only for imports (read the commentary), but because the EU is a net carbon importer, it would affect the importers more.

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#19

“redundant” in the sense of non-monopolistic; equal energy supply companies; but can also be deleted

#20

Comments and ideas at the meeting in Barcelona:
https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/CEEP-2019_Working_pad
Line 195-239

Greetings

Michael

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