EU produces record wind and solar energy as it shirks Russian gas
It’s no coincidence that the United Kingdom is enjoying the largest output of wind power in Europe. But now it’s having a go at France.
The U.K. and the European Union are in full-blown trade dispute. The U.K. is trying to make a better deal with Brussels over the price of gas and is using its wind energy industry to try to make it happen.
Ahead of a global climate meeting starting Friday, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May is holding a series of meetings with European leaders. Their main area of focus: Germany.
The meeting on Friday in Bonn will be followed by a second in mid-June in Paris for a day of negotiations on climate change. The summit in Paris will be the first major political gathering since Donald Trump was elected the president of the United States.
May hopes the talks will get a breakthrough in climate change. Germany is one of the few countries whose rejection of Trump’s Paris climate agreement caused the Trump administration to withdraw, leaving May to walk the diplomatic tightrope as both sides try to forge a consensus.
The U.K.’s approach is largely about the cost of gas. In November, the U.K. cut its carbon emissions by 14 percent in a year. That will make the country the world’s second greenest economy. The country’s strategy is to put the focus on efficiency, renewable energy and energy saving, rather than on carbon.
That will be the government’s approach when it meets with German officials on Friday to discuss whether to proceed with plans for an energy grid to replace the current one designed to supply gas from Russia, France and Ukraine.
The U.K. will be making its first direct gas imports from Europe under the European Union’s Energy Union (E.U.E.U.’s) gas pipeline to reduce its carbon footprint at home. It’