WILL EUROPE BECOME INDEPENDENT OF ENERGY RESOURCES FROM RUSSIA? - International Climate Summit TOGETAIR 2023
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WILL EUROPE BECOME INDEPENDENT OF ENERGY RESOURCES FROM RUSSIA?

WILL EUROPE BECOME INDEPENDENT OF ENERGY RESOURCES FROM RUSSIA?


– We have been working for years on independence and diversification of energy sources. The most important aspect of energy independence is sustainability. We need more local RES. We need more efficiency and energy savings, lower consumption, to make the best use of our resources,” stressed Ditte Juul Jørgensen, Director General of Energy at the European Commission, in an interview with TOGETAIR during the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW), which is taking place in Brussels from September 26-30.

WATCH VIDEO: Ditte Juul-Jørgensen, Director General for Energy at the European Commission

The European Sustainable Energy Week was dominated by topics on ensuring Europe’s energy independence, its digitization to support and boost the green transition, and the need for global cooperation to take meaningful climate action.

– We are facing a three-pronged crisis.  We are facing a climate crisis. We have a high cost of living for households and an energy supply crisis. The solution is RES and energy efficiency.  We are seeing volatile fossil fuel prices. However, the rise in gas and oil prices show that RES is the way forward,” declared Ciaran Cuffe, Member of the European Parliament Dublin, in an interview with TOGETAIR. “We are experiencing many crises now. Not just the war in Ukraine. The simple message of the European Green Deal continues to resonate in Brussels. Implementation of 20 pieces of legislation on RES, energy efficiency, building retrofits is coming – the more we seal our homes, the more we insulate ourselves from Putin.

WATCH VIDEO: Ciaran Cuffe, Member of the European Parliament from Dublin 

The event also includes the third European Energy Youth Day, where the younger generation from different member states discuss and give their perspectives on how best to achieve Europe’s energy goals and what actions need to be taken to ensure a sustainable energy future for the next generation.

– The young are the loudest, but also the best informed. They are aware of the climate crisis and its effects. They want to introduce sustainable, quick-to-reach goals to curb the climate crisis; reduce over-consumption, implement sustainable mobility, invest in RES,” commented Anja Fortuna, Vice President of the European Youth Forum, in an interview with Togetair. 

WATCH VIDEO: Anja Fortuna, Vice President of the European Youth Forum 

TOGETAIR Climate Summit organizers present in Brussels during the EUSEW represent the Polish perspective in interviews with leading MEPs and parliamentarians (Ditte Juul Jorgensen, Director-General, DG ENERGY, European Commission; Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director, Clean Hydrogen Partnership; Yves Paindaveine, Head of Sector, Directorate-General Connect; Mechthild Wörsdörfer, Deputy Director-General for Energy, DG ENERGY, European Commission; Ciarán Cuffe, Member of European Parliament and President of EUFORES (Ireland, Greens) responsible for sustainable energy in the European Union. 

– In a special year for energy and ecology, we are even more committed to building consensus and finding solutions at the European level. That’s why we couldn’t miss EUSEW,” comments Agata Smieja, President of the Clean Air Foundation and organizer of the TOGETAIR Climate Summit. 

TOGETAIR TV News produced a series of interviews on topics such as the climate crisis, fossil fuel dependence highlighted by the crisis in Ukraine and international responses to Russian aggression, shifting the energy system to fully renewable energy sources, and the European Green Deal and REPowerEU as major tools for accelerating the energy transition. 

All interviews are available on TOGETAIR’s YouTube channel

– Working on topics such as climate change, increasing energy efficiency and a clean environment are key issues, not only until the end of this year, during the Czech presidency of the European Union, but also beyond, Tomáš Prouza, a Czech economist, former deputy finance minister and state secretary for European affairs, told the TOGETAIR studio. European Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office of the Czech Republic, “We definitely need in Europe, in the Czech Republic and in Poland, for our industry to be much cleaner, much more energy efficient, and for our societies to be guaranteed that we are fighting climate change.

ABOVE VIDEO: Tomáš Prouza, Czech economist and former deputy finance minister, in conversation with Togetair in Brussels

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The European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) is the largest event dedicated to green energy issues in Europe. Among the nearly eight thousand participants are representatives of governments, leading NGOs and EU institutions, who share their experiences and ideas for introducing a greener and more socially just energy economy. 

Energy Week is organized by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and the European Executive Agency for Climate, Infrastructure and the Environment (CINEA). The event’s slogan is “Greening and Digitalization as Directions for Europe’s Energy Transition.”