European countries must quickly speed up their efforts and define their investment needs and plans in the shift to a low-carbon economy that aims at being sustainable and resilient to climate change: this emerged from the briefing on Financing Europe’s low carbon, climate resilient future published by the European Environment Agency (EEA), which also highlights «the need for clear information on investment needs and priorities to attract private finance». The briefing is based on a new study entitled Assessing the state-of-play of climate finance tracking in Europe, which reveals that only few European countries, i.e. Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, have translated their national climate and energy objectives into corresponding investment needs and plans and «seem to have a national approach or an ongoing strategy for tracking actual spending related to climate mitigation activities».
The study identifies a «lack of country-level preparedness and information regarding estimated total investment needs, as well as their current and planned expenditure volumes for climate and energy purposes. As a result, the EU estimates of total climate finance investment needs are not matched by complementary national assessments. Based on the experience of the Member States, the EEA briefing identifies the need to implement country-level and European efforts for a stronger monitoring of national policies and initiatives in the field of climate finance».
The European Union analysis estimates the investment gap at the EU level to be in the order of EUR 177 billion per year between 2021 and 2030. The EEA concludes that «reaching these targets will require a doubling of current annual investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency in this period. This will require mobilizing public and private funds, which will also pay significant additional dividends in terms of job creation, reduced energy poverty, increased energy security, as well as improved air quality».