Meta-review of Belgium's integrated National Energy and Climate draft Plan 2021-2030

Abstract

The EU energy & climate policy requests from all Member States to submit a National Energy & Climate Plan (NECP) over the year 2019, to reach the aggregate goals of energy efficiency, renewable energy supplies and greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2030. The complicated Belgian context is briefly described. Then the many comments on Belgium’s draft NECP are summarized and annotated. Commentators are the European Commission, various statutory advisory councils on energy and climate policies, NGOs, consultants, etc. The draft plan requires significant improvement for meeting the formal standards imposed by the EU framework. More problematic however are the doubts about the actual capability of Belgium to realize the paper & ink commitments. Delving into the draft NECP and the abundant comments created a growing insight that the bureaucratic NECP approach of the European Commission is obsolete and dysfunctional. For addressing the energy & climate challenges, urgent & drastic, i.e. disruptive transformation is requested. Hence, disruptive thinking, novel frameworks and approaches should prevail.