The EU should be the world’s heat-pump pioneer

Fearing for her reappointment, Ursula von der Leyen, boss of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, soft-pedalled over unpopular green policies in the run-up to the European Parliament elections on June 9th. Mrs von der Leyen had proclaimed in 2019 that the EU Green Deal, the union’s strategy to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, was the EU’s “man-on-the-moon moment”.

But in February she blocked a draft law to slash the use of pesticides in farming, and loosened some of the environmental strings tied to the subsidies of the EU’s common agricultural policy. Still more striking was her decision to delay publication of a heat-pump action plan that had been scheduled for early in the year to an unspecified time after the elections.

The postponement in releasing a plan considered key to the success of the Green Deal has dismayed many EU policymakers. According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, about half of all energy consumed in the EU is for heating and cooling, and more than 70% of that still comes from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas. Buildings account for about 35% of energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. And around four-fifths of energy consumption by residential buildings is used for heating them and supplying their hot water.