ABSTRACT
In its ‘2020 Strategy,’ the European Union (EU) intends to combine Research and Development, education, employment and poverty targets with climate change and energy benchmarks. The EU aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (30% if the conditions are right) relative to 1990. Energy from renewables and energy efficiency are both planned to increase by 20 percent in the same period (European Commission 2010). To achieve these targets, the EU applies a ‘green growth’ or ecological modernization approach. The incorporation of environmental goals such as climate change mitigation into the overall growth strategy has led to a renaissance of state socio-economic and environmental regulation and indeed to a ‘return to planning’ (Giddens2009). Giddens represents the academic mainstream in regarding an active state as necessary to set goals and targets, manage risks, promote industrial policy, realign prices and counter negative business interests. He argues that, especially in the circumstances of the financial crisis, economic recovery presupposes public investment, and that this should be targeted towards energy security and low-carbon infrastructures. By reducing energy and material costs and the West’s reliance on the fragile geopolitics of energy supply, the provision of jobs in the expanding ‘green’ sector and meeting carbon emission reduction targets, EU policy-makers intend to achieve synergy between economic, ecological and social welfare goals.
