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Assuming responsibility for changes in climate demands to decrease carbon dioxide emissions greatly in the years to come. Although it was found that it is possible for industrialised countries to show economic growth at stable emission levels, the effects of a continued drive to reduce emissions may put strain on societies highly dependent on energy.
== Latest developments in the key areas:== === Current policy framework, policy changes, important developments on country, EU, European or international level ===Society influences energy policy largely through political representation. In consequence to a long history of national energy policy paradigms, the energy mix in Europe is highly varied. Different scales of subsidies have greatly contributed to an increasing share of renewable energy sources across the continent. This is represented in the highest share of state subsidies across all EU Member States to energy production from renewable energy sources – totalling €41Bn – however, society’s continuing need for energy as a means to generate income is reflected in the €27Bn in subsidies on the demand side such as tax deductions, according to a [https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/ECOFYS%202014%20Subsidies%20and%20costs%20of%20EU%20energy_11_Nov.pdf 2014 report by the European Commission]. These two numbers reflect a conflict of interest between creating a more sustainable, less energy-intensive society and the maintenance of living standards.
With a new digital economy emerging and maturing, society has created and sought the potential of immaterial goods requiring less energy. These transformational effects seep into nearly all aspects of economy, providing a set of tools to rethink the energy sector.
Further, society’s needs and priorities are very directly communicated through citizen initiatives. Initiatives such as [https://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/projects/en/projects/citizenergy CitizenEnergy], the European platform for citizen investment, or the many other community projects can hardly generate support levels as high as state level. CitizenEnergy quotes investments of € ±1.5M, >6,000 backers and a total of 11.75MW installed capacity, which is on a much smaller scale than state-level policy effects. Nonetheless, an increasing number of such initiatives could become crucial to a more democratic energy market, as advocated by e.g. the European cooperative project “REScoop”.
== Key Actors ==
