The small show which way Europe should walk.

The RES (renewable energy sources) Champions League announced its winners for the second time, this year in Prague. The RES Champions League is a network of national RES leagues, which aims at creating a positive renewable energy competition between European cities, towns and villages. According to the RES ranking, strong cities and towns are found in Germany, Italy and the Check Republic, but also other participating countries like Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and France are showing successful and innovative example to Europe.

Besides celebrating the winners, the RES Champions League conference provided an experience ex-change, where various RES solutions used by towns and cities were presented during the conference. As being organized in Prague, it also brought a reminder about the current Czech government policy, which, in comparison with the EU accent on the green energy, is driving in opposite direction.

The final rankings can be found on RES Champions League home page. A great hurray and respect should be directed to these cities and towns for taking an entrepreneurial grip on the matter, supporting the development of renewable energy sources on a concrete level and at the same time showing direction to whole Europe. It is with thrill that we can wait and expect big cities, even metropolises to being able to implement similar solutions in a somewhat bigger scale to underpin the result of climate change mitigation even more.

CHAMP countries are already represented
CLER (France) co-ordinates the project, and the following organisations function as project partners: Solarthemen in Germany, LEA in Czech republic, PNEC in Poland, ABEA in Bulgaria, EKKE in Hungary, Legambiente in Italy, Climate Alliance in Germany, DUH in Germany

The competition is targeted at cities and towns working for the development of renewable energies. All CHAMP partners (besides Finland) can already participate, as they are represented as a nation in RES CL. It is also possible, even desirable to set up a new National RES Champion Leagues! To know more about the competition that will certainly be open again next year, please visit the web site.

The principles of the RES Champions League:
One index: based on installed power (or area) per inhabitant
Two energies: solar (photovoltaic and thermal) and wood (heat)
One general ranking (all sizes) and three divisions:
- small cities and towns (between 5,000 and 19,999 inhabitants)
- medium cities and towns (between 20,000 and 99,999 inhabitants)
- large cities and towns (more than 100,000 inhabitants)

Source: RES CL
Picture source: RES CL

Finding Win Wind solutions for Europe

The times of recession are turning and the world can go back to efficient production. Unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency state that greenhouse gas emissions are increasing again, faster than ever, hitting records last year. Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA note that the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled, showing also that the significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago.

At the same time the Fukushima catastrophy makes minds turn about nuclear power. Germany’s decision to shut all nuclear reactors by 2022, makes the situation on greenhouse gas emissions even more interesting. How is Germany planning to reach its ambitiously set goals on CO2 reduction? Ac-cording to Reuter, Angela Merkel’s ruling Coalition has planned to cut power use by 10 percent by 2020 and further expand the use of renewable energy such as wind and solar power. This is a piece of good news! Europe’s biggest economy has opened the doors to suppliers of renewable solutions, showing example also to others who will be affected by the closure of nuclear stations. In yesterday’s news a representative of a Finnish Wind Power provider happily expressed his enthusiasm to stand in the first row to sell their solutions around Europe.

What about the German-Russian natural gas pipeline that was completed earlier this month, and the second that is being built? Nord Stream Joint Venture is enjoying favourable times. Fukushima came just on time for a German decision on nuclear power, and a more easily accepted transition into lighting German houses through the Natural Gas pipeline that has awoke much mystification especially in the states between Europe’s two power poles. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, reminds about the ways politicians and other actors in the world’s great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world's last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic.

Indeed, Germany is showing example on what kind of energy source is desirable to be used to reach goals on emissions reduction. I hope that the Finnish Wind Power provider will make it to the first row and has a clear throat when selling his solutions. There seems to be a somewhat bigger actor on the playground, with a stronger voice. It will not be easy to convince decision makers on the “Win Wind situation”, when gas is soon to be provided directly from underneath the surface of the Baltic Sea.

Foto: City of turku

AFP:
YLE Uutiset

The Guardian: Fiona Harvey