Recently, the European Union (EU) revisited its climate ambitions, aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. It is also on the verge of harmonising its roadmap with this ambitious objective, with the first milestone being a -55% emissions reduction by 2030. With its recent Climate Law as a starting point, Greece will soon have to also revisit its national energy and climate plan, in this new European direction.

At the same time, the EU's plan for responding to today's energy crisis and eliminating its dependency on Russian fossil fuels, since the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, explicitly mentions accelerating new renewable energy projects, diffusing energy efficiency measures, and diversifying its energy supply portfolio. However, many European leaders have so far sought solutions in currently available "grey" resources as well as in new fossil-fuel investments. In Greece, this translates to reprioritisation of lignite and bold investments into new fossil fuels, notably liquefied natural gas, opening many questions regarding the country's climate ambition in the near future.

Any effort to respond to these questions, regarding national climate action and green transition in the light of today's energy crisis, must be socially acceptable. Ideally, citizens should be given the stand to co-produce the national strategy, be informed and express their views on the alternatives, and co-own Greece's green transition.

In this context, PARIS REINFORCE and the Hellenic Society for the Environment and Culture are co-organising a national conference on "Climate change, the Energy Crisis and Greece's Net-Zero Transition", on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, in the Acropolis Museum, giving the opportunity to stakeholders from industry, academia, government, and the civil society to get informed, discuss, raise concerns, in four sessions: the national plan towards dealing with the energy price shocks, the value of energy democracy in the long-term transition, the role of business in today's energy crisis, and the potential lying in renewables (and especially wind energy) to a socially just and environmentally effective pathway to net-zero.

The agenda of the event along with the registration form can be found here (in Greek).

PARIS REINFORCE was among the ten H2020 research projects behind the organisation of this year's European Climate and Energy Modelling Platform (ECEMP), revolving around "ambitions to a net-zero EU: roadblocks, challenges, and opportunities", hosted online, on October 5-7, 2022.

The conference brought together Europe’s climate and energy modelling community over a three-day period in a forum for deep exchange of research and modelling practice and varied discussions, featuring a balanced mix of high-level panel discussions and interactive workshop sessions to enable a peer-reviewed digest of models and policy insights for the transformation of the European energy system. ECEMP 2022 offered a platform for exchange among researchers and modelling teams from across Europe; from H2020 projects, representatives of the European Commission as well as partners from industry and civil society. It was planned as an online event, due to uncertainties regarding the possibility of physical meetings, although it was set up so as to enable interaction and ensure an engaging, policy-oriented, and enjoyable conference experience.

Apart from co-hosting the conference, PARIS REINFORCE also presented three studies:

October 5 (Day 1) - Energy security and geopolitics for fossil and low-carbon fuels: An integrated methodology for power generation planning decision support: the case of Greece’s green hydrogen economy. by Koutsandreas, D., Trachanas, G.P., Pappis, I., Nikas, A., Doukas, H.. & Psarras, J.

October 6 (Day 2) - Innovation, societal and technical changes for Net Zero: What do experts perceive as critical game-changing innovations to consider in modelling and policy? by Perdana, S., Xexakis, G., Koasidis, K., Vielle, M., Nikas, A., Doukas, H., Gambhir, A., Anger-Kraavi, A., May, E., McWilliams, B., & Boitier, B.

October 6 (Day 2) - Innovation, societal and technical changes for Net Zero: Stakeholder-informed modelling to decarbonise the Greek power sector in the light of today's energy crisis. by Koasidis, K., Karamaneas, A., Nikas, A., Koutsandreas, D., & Doukas, H.

You may read all about the project's presentations in international scientific conferences here.

On October 7, 2022, the PARIS REINFORCE project hosted a hybrid stakeholder workshop at the premises of the Grantham Institute Imperial College London with some participants joining via Zoom.

The goal was to discuss and refine the results from the modelling and case study work on low-carbon pathways for the UK and the EU, together with stakeholders from the UK public and private sector, as well as academia.

We also aimed to identify bottlenecks hampering the decarbonisation pathways and to co-create solutions for a transformative policy mix that could overcome those bottlenecks, with a particular focus on energy-intensive industries.

You can read more about the workshop and browse all presentations here (link).

We live in turbulent times, and the role of petroleum is at the heart of global and local political debate about how we should rebuild after COVID-19 and address our worsening crises of climate and international stability. A transition to a world without oil as its primary source of fuel and energy is vital if we are to reach the climate targets set by the Paris Agreement, but the pathway, feasibility, and timing of such an unprecedented transition is still hotly debated. We know that oil will come to an end, but whether its closing date is set by emptied reservoirs, greener alternatives, or political decisions, is still to be determined. Recognising that the “age of oil” is being challenged, Petrocultures 2022 brought together scientists, artists, activists, journalists, and politicians to discuss transformations and ways forward from our current dependency on oil cultures with a particular focus on the humanities and social sciences. It hosted presentations, exhibits, and conversations about the transformations needed to influence the transition from our current culture and dependency on oil, aiming to create a forum for constructive exchange about the way green transition initiatives are narrated—including the way oil is narrated in the past, present, and future—across social and political divides.

PARIS REINFORCE researchers, Alevgul Sorman and Esther Galende-Sanchez from the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), took part in the Petrocultures 2022: Transformations conference, which was held in August 24-27, 2022 at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum and a nearby conference venue in Stavanger, the energy capital of Norway.

PARIS REINFORCE researchers, Alevgul Sorman and Esther Galende-Sanchez, presented their findings from a deliberative dialogue conducted in Spain on how behavioural and emotional drivers can lock us into petroleum-intensive mobility and consumption patterns or move us forward toward climate action, in the session on Oil Behaviours.

You may read more about our participation in this conference here (link).

Eight more scientific publications of the PARIS REINFORCE project were made available in October 2022:

• Cassetti, G., Boitier, B., Elia, A., Le Mouël, P., Gargiulo, M., Zagamé, P., Nikas, A., Koasidis, K., Doukas, H., & Chiodi, A. (2022). The interplay among COVID-19 economic recovery, behavioural changes, and the European Green Deal: An energy-economic modelling perspective. Energy, in press, 125798. (link)
• Koasidis, K., Nikas, A., Van de Ven, D.J., Xexakis, G., Forouli, A., Mittal, S., Gambhir, A., Koutsellis, T., & Doukas, H. (2022). Towards a green recovery in the EU: Aligning further emissions reductions with short- and long-term energy-sector employment gains. Energy Policy, 171, 113301. (link)
• Yang, X., Gao, Y., Zhu, M., & Springer, C. (2022). Assessing Methane Emissions From the Natural Gas Industry: Reviewing the Case of China in a Comparative Framework. Current Climate Change Reports, in press. (link)
• Forouli, A., Pagonis, A., Nikas, A., Koasidis, K., Xexakis, G., Koutsellis, T., Petkidis, C., & Doukas, H. (2022). AUGMECON-Py: A Python framework for multi-objective linear optimisation under uncertainty. SoftwareX, 20, 101220. (link)
  
• Koutsellis, T., Nikas, A., Koasidis, K., Xexakis, G., Petkidis, C., Karamaneas, A., & Doukas, H. (2022). Normalising the Output of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. In 2022 13th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems & Applications (IISA) (pp. 1-7). IEEE. (link)
• Yang, X., Nielsen, C. P., Song, S., & McElroy, M. B. (2022). Breaking the hard-to-abate bottleneck in China’s path to carbon neutrality with clean hydrogen. Nature Energy, 7, 955-965. (link)
• Perdana, S., & Vielle, M. (2022). Making the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism acceptable and climate friendly for least developed countries. Energy Policy, 170, 113245. (link)
• Perdana, S., Schenckery, M., & Vielle, M. (2022). Impact d’un embargo sur les importations russes d’énergie en Europe. La Revue de l'Énergie, 663, 71-83. (link)

As of today, 82 scientific publications have been produced in the context of the PARIS REINFORCE project; you may browse them here.

Send us an email for any questions or express interest in the PARIS REINFORCE research

PARIS REINFORCE, NTUA 9, Iroon Polytechniou str., Athens, Greece

You received this email because you expressed your interest in getting informed on PARIS REINFORCE news via our online subscription form, or meeting us in an event, or via e-mail.

If you are no longer interested in receiving our news you may 
Unsubscribe