This year, Sound of Green is looking at energy security from different angles. In our previous episode, we went local and looked at how energy communities can build support for renewable energy. This time, we zoom out to Europe as a whole. 

This article is based on our episode interview and includes lightly edited and paraphrased quotes for clarity and readability. Listen to the full interview here:

Dan Jørgensen has worked on these questions at both national and European level. Before he became European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, he was Denmark’s Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities. We asked him a fairly big question: how do you convince Europe that the green transition is worth the effort in the middle of an energy crisis? 

A lesson from Denmark in the 1970s 

Denmark has been here before. When the oil crisis hit in the 1970s, most of the country’s energy came from imported oil, much of it from the Middle East. Rather than look for new suppliers, Danish politicians decided the country should produce more of its own energy. That decision became the starting point for Denmark’s wind industry. 

Dan Jørgensen sees a direct line from those choices to Denmark’s position in offshore wind today. The world’s first offshore wind farm was built in Denmark in 1991, and at the time many doubted it made sense: 

“Back then, many people shook their heads and said that’s way too difficult and way too expensive. But of course, today, offshore wind competes with coal in price.” 

For Jørgensen, the point is how a country uses a crisis. The decisions you make to get out of it should move you onto a different track, instead of keeping you on the one you are already on: 

“Make sure that the decisions you make to get out of that crisis are not something that will keep you on the track that you’re already on but instead make the decisions that make sure that you change tracks so that you become independent.” 

Climate change was hardly on the agenda in the 1970s. Today it is, and the EU imports close to 60% of its energy. Jørgensen argues that Europe should follow the same logic Denmark did back then: become more independent and decarbonise the energy system while doing it. 

“Now, for the EU as a whole, the strategy is very much the same as it was in Denmark in the 70s. We need to become independent, but we also need to do it because we need to decarbonise our energy system.” 

When voters worry about the bill

Asked about climate fatigue, Jørgensen says public concern goes up and down from year to year, and that the last two summers have reminded many Europeans how serious the problem is. Heat now costs thousands of lives in Europe every summer. 

Many politicians hear a simpler message from their voters: what matters is the energy bill. Jørgensen’s answer is that Europe does not have to choose between lower bills, security of supply and climate action, because the solutions largely overlap: 

“The good news is that the things we need to do to become independent, so strengthen our security in the field of energy, and the things we need to do to lower prices, and the things we need to do to fight climate change are more or less the same. We need to produce more homegrown energy.” 

Europe has little oil and gas of its own, so a “drill, baby, drill” approach was never really an option. What Europe does have is wind, sun, geothermal energy and hydropower. More of it means more energy produced at home and, over time, cheaper energy. It also brings jobs, often to regions and cities that need them. Jørgensen does not play down the challenges, but he does not see this as a negative story either. 

How long before households feel the difference? 

Large energy projects take time. Even in Denmark, which Jørgensen counts among the fastest countries in the world at this, it can easily take eight years from the decision to build an offshore wind farm until it is in operation. 

Because Europe started making these decisions years ago, the effects are already showing. According to Jørgensen, Europe deployed 78 gigawatts of new renewable capacity the year before last and close to 90 gigawatts last year. He puts the savings from newly deployed renewables alone at more than 30 billion euros a year on Europe’s energy bills, on top of what existing capacity already saves. Connections between national grids save billions more. 

He is careful about how he uses those numbers: 

“I think, for people that cannot pay their bill, it’s not really a comfort to them, that it could have been even worse. I think we do need to take it seriously.” 

Still, he thinks the figures belong in the debate, not least because some will be tempted to argue that Europe is on the wrong track. 

Grids, permits and shared planning 

If renewable energy is the answer, the grid is often where things get stuck. Jørgensen points to hundreds of gigawatts of renewable projects across Europe that could be online but are waiting for grid capacity. On behalf of the European Commission, he has proposed strengthening Europe’s grids and cutting permitting times. Today, a permit for a new wind farm or a grid expansion can easily take five years. He wants to bring that down to around six months as a general rule. 

He also wants more common European planning. Here, the Danish example is useful. Denmark has a high share of wind power because of decades of good political decisions, but also because it is closely connected to its neighbours, who help balance the variable output: 

“Had we not been as connected as we are to our neighbours, because of the fluctuating nature of renewable energy, we could not have done it.” 

Some member states see common planning as Brussels taking power from national governments. Jørgensen disagrees: 

“This is not a zero-sum game, this is a plus-sum game.” 

The EU would not force member states to build anything, he explains. A shared European scenario gives each country a clearer picture of the system it is part of, which makes it easier to invest wisely. Cross-border projects still raise the question of who pays. Denmark and Germany, for example, had to negotiate how to split the costs of the energy island on Bornholm. The EU now wants a common framework for cost sharing in cases like these. 

Twenty years of change 

Jørgensen’s worries have not changed much since he started reading about climate change as a teenager, including Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance. What has changed is the science, which has only become more certain. He points to the risk of passing 1.5 degrees of warming, perhaps even two, and of triggering effects that cannot be reversed. 

“Nothing good comes from panic. It’s okay to be a little bit afraid. I am actually myself. But more importantly: action.” 

Other things have moved in the right direction. When Jørgensen was elected to the European Parliament in 2004, few politicians had climate as their main focus, and those who did were not always taken seriously. Danish industry has changed its position too: 

“I remember having people from Denmark in my office in the European Parliament arguing that we were too ambitious in our targets on reducing carbon. Now, of course, it’s the opposite. Danish companies are travelling to Brussels and trying to push in the other direction, to be more ambitious.” 

Technology has also developed faster than many expected. Renewable energy is much cheaper than it was, and investment is growing worldwide, including in China and the US. Batteries were hardly part of the political negotiations when Jørgensen was minister in Denmark only a few years ago. Lower prices and larger scale have since made them an important part of the energy system. 

Starting with what is necessary 

When Jørgensen became Denmark’s climate minister, the government set out to cut emissions by 70% by 2030 compared to 1990, which Jørgensen describes as the most ambitious target in the world at the time. On his first day, he asked the ministry to show him every possible measure, including the ones they would not recommend. It added up to 60, maybe 65%. 

They went ahead with 70% anyway, because that was what Denmark needed to do to meet its share of the Paris Agreement: 

“Instead of asking what is possible, we ask what is necessary, and the job then became to make the necessary possible.” 

Jørgensen acknowledges that the target still looks difficult to reach, but says nobody really argues any more that it cannot be done. The Danish Council on Climate Change has at times concluded that it will probably be met. Now it looks a little more difficult, but in his view it can certainly be done. Jørgensen sees the same pattern at European level. A 55% cut by 2030 was once called unrealistic, and he expects Europe to reach it. He is equally confident about the next step: a 90% cut by 2040. 

That will take the right tools and incentives, and the political will to use them. It also takes leaders who are clear about where they want to go: 

“Policymakers need to show populations that they have a very, very clear vision of where they’re going.” 

Listen to the full conversation with Dan Jørgensen:

About energy security and the green transition in Europe