The Shift Project

In 2024, the digital sector accounted for around 4% of global GHG emissions and 11% of global electricity consumption. Despite efficiency gains, its energy use has been rising by around 6% per year, a trend further accelerated by generative AIs undifferentiated deployment.

According to The Shift Project, the context of the Digital Networks Act as described in the call for contributions overlooks major issues that are just as important as the need to improve the performance of the European economy or the technological transformation of digital infrastructures.

The Shift Project would like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to provide a feedback on the inception impact assessment for the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The Shift Project is a French-based think tank advocating the shift to a carbon-free economy. Lowering the energy demand and Co2 emissions of the EU building stock is central to reach carbon neutrality.

The Shift Project (TSP) welcomes the goal for the EU to reach zero net emissions of GHG by 2050 and advocates several measures for each sector of the EU Green Deal. TSP's mission is to act as a proactive source of proposals which focus primarily on the resources required to make the shift to an economy free of dependency on fossil fuels (and therefore of GHG).

The Shift Project would like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to provide feedback to the evaluation/review roadmap of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED). The Shift Project would like to highlight several points in its feedback, the details of those are provided in the document attached: 1- Europe needs to improve its energy efficiency and, simultaneously, to promote energy sufficiency, for instance…

Making the European Green Deal a success requires market conditions that favour zero and low-carbon investments. But the “price signal” that the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) was supposed to set takes a long time to materialise and impact EU emissions, while the ETS remains vulnerable to external shocks, as we have seen with the recent pandemic and halt to many economic activities.

The vision presented by the Commission in its White Paper highlights what it considers to be the imperative of developing high-speed, efficient, and secure networks, which are viewed as essential pillars of competitiveness across all sectors.

The Shift Project (TSP) is a think-tank advocating the shift to a post-carbon economy. As a non-profit organization committed to serving the general interest through scientific objectivity, we are dedicated to informing and influencing the debate on energy transition in Europe.

The Shift Project welcomes the revision of the CO2 emission standards for cars and vans and allow them to contribute to their fair share of the 2030 CO2 emission reduction target. We support an effective holistic approach across three overarching axes: decrease in demand for transportation in absolute terms (sobriety), shift of habits towards less polluting transport modes and practices (modal shift), improvement of…

The role of the European legislator is to set clear and binding targets to steer industrial policies towards carbon neutrality in 2050. For most businesses, climate is not the central goal: the European regulatory framework should provide a clear and stable trajectory. In this context, the date of 2035 for the end of the sale of new thermal vehicles is an indispensable milestone.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

Security of energy supply particularly for oil and gas and energy dependencies have become central to the credibility of the trajectories monitored under the Governance Regulation, alongside climate targets. This is of course not new, but reinforced by the context of geopolitical tensions, low and declining domestic fossil fuel resources and volatile energy markets on which Europes economy still heavily depends..

[Please refer to the full position paper attached]. The CADA can reduce the EUs structural dependence on non-European digital providers. But it will strengthen European digital sovereignty only if cloud, AI and data centre infrastructure is planned within Europes energy and climate transition.

Despite increased awareness on energy dependency issues following the 2022 Russian gas crisis, the EU remains exposed to significant energy and strategic vulnerabilities.First, the EU is almost entirely dependent on imports for its oil and gas consumption 97.7% and 98%, respectively, in 2022. This imbalance places Europe in a position of major geopolitical dependency.