Renewable Engery sources and the Realities of setting an energy Agenda

• Energy is undoubtedly moving up the political agenda as an issue that needs to be addressed urgently. If last year's threats to European gas supplies during the dis-pute between Russia and Ukraine did not show the immediacy of the challenges such as energy supply, then the report toward the end of last year by Sir Nicholas Stern (i) on the econom-ics of climate change must surely have rung a warning bell. The European Commission has been devot-ing considerable attention to energy issues for some time now. We were leaders in the process that brought about the Kyoto Protocol and have developed the first large-scale emissions trad-ing scheme in the world.