Читать книгу EIB Investment Report 2020/2021 - Группа авторов - Страница 6

In 2019, European investment in climate change mitigation increased gradually. In the EU27, this investment grew 2.7% from a year earlier to EUR 175 billion. The strongest growth was recorded in renewable energy generation, while investments in energy efficiency appeared to stagnate.

European investment in climate change mitigation is well behind that of China, but ahead of the United States – although the contexts are very different. China invested 2.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in climate change projects, ahead of 1.3% in the European Union and 0.8% in the United States. However, the European Union has already gone much further in reducing emissions per unit of GDP. In a sense, Europe has already picked much of the “low-hanging fruit,” and its efforts increasingly have to focus on harder-to-reduce emissions.

The gap between Europe’s climate objectives and realised climate investment is growing. Since 2016, climate change mitigation investment has declined marginally as a percentage of GDP and overall investment, a trend that is likely to continue in 2021. According to the European Commission’s latest impact assessment, investments in the continent’s energy system would need to rise from an average of 1.3% of GDP per year over the last decade, to 2.8% of GDP over the next decade if the European Union is to meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. Adding investments in transport brings the total over the next decade up to 3.7% of GDP per year. European investment in climate change mitigation is still insufficient.

In the coming decade, the focus has to shift from investment by energy producers to investment by energy consumers, including firms, households and municipal authorities. Of the additional investments needed in the next decade, 65% to 75% are expected to focus on improving building insulation, upgrading industrial processes, purchasing more efficient equipment and investing in new transport technologies.

The European Investment Bank Investment Survey (EIBIS) provides a window into climate-related investment by European firms:

• 23% of European firms say that climate change and related weather events have already had a major impact on their business, vs. 14% in the United States. Another 35% of European firms report climate change effects to be minor.

• Just over half of EU firms do not think the transition to a net-zero emission economy will affect their operations over the next five years, and of those that do, the majority see the transition as an opportunity. The firms that expect the transition to have an impact say it could stimulate demand and improve their reputation. Firms are more likely to see the effect on their supply chain as negative, however, and energy-intensive firms expect more negative effects overall.

• 45% of EU firms have invested in climate change mitigation or adaptation measures (vs. 32% in the United States), but fewer plan to do so in the next three years. The investment figure varies from 50% in Western and Northern Europe to 32% in Central and Eastern Europe. A slightly lower 40% of European firms are planning to invest in climate measures in the next three years. A majority of European firms, 75%, say uncertainty about regulation and taxation is impeding climate-related investment.

• The proportion of EU firms reporting investment in energy-efficiency measures increased to 47%, up almost 10 percentage points over 2019. The average share of investment devoted to energy efficiency rose from 10% to 12%, with large firms and manufacturing firms more likely to invest.

While more than half of municipalities have increased climate change mitigation investments over the past three years, two-thirds still consider the level of investment to be inadequate. The EIB Municipality Survey 2020 reveals that 56% of municipalities increased climate investment, but 66% consider their climate investment over the last three years to be inadequate. For investment in climate change adaptation, 44% increased investment and 70% consider investment to still be inadequate. This suggests that climate adaptation investment could be a more pressing issue in the future.