Nikos Mantzaris spoke at the 1st ENAP forum on Public Policies and Creative Public Service on the impacts the energy crisis has had so far on Just Transition.
In his presentation Nikos Mantzaris provided evidence that the unprecedented, current energy crisis has actually accelerated the energy transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, in terms of electricity generation in the first 9 months of 2022 in the EU-27 and Greece, but also in terms of planning for 2030 both at the European level and the Member State level in EU-27.
However, the public debate, especially as reflected in the media, distorts the reality by focusing on the small (compared to renewables) increase in electricity generation from lignite and fossil gas in Europe and the much smaller such increase in lignite in Greece, compared to 2021. The result is the diversion of the debate, especially in the lignite regions of the country, away from the Just Transition and the urgent need to change the production model.
Nikos Mantzaris concluded his presentation by stressing that the transition of the lignite regions will proceed one way or the other given that the path of de-lignitization is irreversible for a number of reasons. However, if the local society refrains from the transition process because of a focus on the false hopes of continuing the lignite-based electricity model or for any other reason, it will not be just.
Other participants in the same session entitled “Facing critical energy choices: Geopolitics, Climate Change and Just Transition” included Stamatis Zachariadis, international economist, attaché for economic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Katsoulakos, Mechanical Engineer at INP, Olivier Vardakoulias, economist at Climate Action Network (CAN) and Dimitris Tsekeris, mechanical engineer and director of Think bee.
The forum was held on October 14, 2022.
