The COVID-19 pandemic and the EU : from a sustainable energy transition to a green transition?

Crnčec, Danijel (author), Penca, Jerneja (author), Lovec, Marko (author)

The article examines the implications held by the EU's response to the COVID-19 pandemic for the green transition as set by the European Green Deal. It distinguishes changes in: (a) the use of policy instruments; (b) governance principles; and (c) the prioritising of policy goals as expressed via the conceptual framework of orders of change. The article assesses the extent of these changes as well as the patterns and regional variations among EU Member States, together with the Commission's role in pushing for preferential energy policy choices and encouraging the Member States' ambitions. The analysis shows the EU Energy Union governance framework was promoting the EU's climate targets' full integration into the EU's energy transition policy instruments (first order of change) even before the European Green Deal. Still, the EU's response to the COVID-19 crisis created strong financial and policy leverage to accelerate the green transition and gave an opportunity to close the gap between less ambitious and more ambitious EU countries. Many countries traditionally reliant on EU funds seized this opportunity, demonstrating the role of changed governance principles (the second order of change). However, the crisis has had an evolutionary impact, not a revolutionary one. While coherence between the energy and climate goals remains high, the EU's energy transition is falling short in fully integrating biodiversity (which would constitute a full paradigmatic, third-order change), despite this being an essential component of the EU's green transition.

• Language: English
• Keywords: energy transition, green energy, covid-19, epidemic, EU energy Policy, COVID-19 recovery, green transition, European green deal, ‘do no significant harm’ principle, EU biodiversity policy
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 175, art. 113453
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-144417
• UDC: 620.9
• ISSN on article: 0301-4215
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113453
• COBISS.SI-ID: 141177091
• Publication date in RUL: 21.02.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Energy policy
• Shortened title: Energy policy
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0301-4215
• COBISS.SI-ID: 7272453

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: energetski prehod, zelena energija, covid-19, epidemija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: J5-2562
• Name: Prenos norm v EU in Sloveniji - ocena napredka k okoljski in trajnostni preobrazbi