European Sustainable Energy Seminar took place in Talsi, Latvia, between 25-27 September 2024, organised by the network INFORSE-Europe. Za Zemiata, as the Bulgarian member, joined the meeting through the national TogetherFor1.5 Coordinator – Radostina Slavkova.

The seminar program covered many topics such as Scenarios and roadmaps of the Climate and Energy policy by 2030 and Climate Neutrality by 2050 for the participating countries from Eastern Europe, Baltic and Scandinavian. Other topics of interest were: the sufficiency policies integration in NECPs and other governance processes, the development of energy communities, the current situation with the Global climate negotiations, a tour showcasing local sustainable energy examples.

The event program had “Open evening”, which featured presentations from participants on topics they work with and that they are interested in. Thus, Radostina seized the opportunity to present to the group of climate and energy campaigners and university students the topic “Climate co-benefits and targets in the final NECP draft of Bulgaria”, /link to the presentation./ published in early June.

Radostina showed the co-benefits figures for both EU and member states and discussed in more depth the Bulgarian co-benefits and their context. Another highlight was the comparison at EU level between annual costs and benefits to 2030 (co-benefits plus avoided climate losses outweighing the additional investments and costs to be 1.5 C compatible).

Regarding the NECP draft, substantial increase could be seen in the RES targets for 2030 (34.48%), while despite the coal exit being planned for 2038 the economic condition could lead to closer to 2030 actual phase out, visible also by the modelling. 

A threat (also for solving the climate crisis) would be the planned increase in nuclear capacity between 2030 and 2040, which comes too late, too costly and too risky. The draft says the new nuclear capacities are needed in order to balance the system due to the growth of RES, but this would be an unreasonable and unprofitable step with the existence of good alternatives – increasingly rapidly decreasing cost of storage technologies in combination with a mix of locally relevant renewables.