Brussels - The European Union will fail to meet its goal of cutting energy consumption by 20 per cent by 2020 unless it makes better buildings and products, the bloc's executive said Thursday.
The warning was accompanied by a package designed to increase the bloc's energy efficiency and reduce its dependency on energy imports.
One proposal involves extending popular energy-efficiency labels now found on consumer goods such as fridges and washing machines to industrial products and buildings.
Another involves creating more off-shore wind farms and investing more money in gas and electricity networks.
'Energy prices have risen by an average of 15 per cent in the European Union in the last year. (And) 54 per cent of Europe's energy is imported at a cost of 700 euros (877 dollars) for every EU citizen,' said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
'We have to address this urgently, by taking measures to increase our energy efficiency and reduce our dependence on imports,' he said.
EU governments have committed themselves to ambitious climate change and energy targets known as '20-20-20'.
These involve cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent of their 1990 levels, reducing energy consumption by 20 per cent, and boosting its share of renewable energy by 20 per cent - all by 2020.
But preliminary data suggests that the EU will fail to achieve its energy saving goal unless new initiatives are taken. Costly CO2 emission cuts, meanwhile, are to be discussed at a December summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
Building on the success of existing energy efficiency A-G labels on consumer goods, the commission wants to extend their use to industrial products such as elevators, and even buildings.
According to officials in Brussels, old buildings guzzle up to 60 litres of heating oil per square metre floor area per year. Newer, energy-efficient buildings, by contrast, can consume less than 5 litres per square metre.
Energy-efficiency labels should also guide governments when deciding what products to buy or which should benefit from consumer incentives.
If enacted, such a proposal could lead to annual energy savings equivalent to 27 million tonnes of oil, or the total emissions expected to be produced by a country like Austria in 2020.
The commission is also worried that the bloc's current networks will soon be unable to guarantee an adequate supply of energy.
Its experts predict that governments will need to spend up to 1 trillion euros on new networks and on generation capacity and a further 150 billion on gas networks between now and 2030.
'We have to invest and diversify. The proposals adopted today represent an unequivocal statement of the commission's desire to guarantee secure and sustainable energy supplies, and should help us deliver on the crucial 20-20-20 climate change targets,' Barroso said.
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