The négaWatt Association

English subtitles are available, please activate them in the video settings.

The implementation of the Paris Agreement is calling for reinforced action in all member States. At the European level, reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 will require an ambitious and coordinated energy transition strategy.

The Energy Union initiative and the recent Green Deal announced by European Commission’s president Ursula Von der Leyen are great opportunities to do so. Until today, at the European level, no scenario has been constructed in a bottom-up manner, starting from national trajectories, nor has proposed the adequate level of ambition on all sustainability issues, beyond technological issues alone. We aim to achieve the first supranational scenario that reconciles the need for ambition heightened by the climate emergency, with the technical, societal and political feasibility of the necessary transformations, supported by genuine policies targeted to this end.

An ambitious methodology : sufficiency, efficiency, and renewable energies

The project aims at developing one the most ambitious decarbonisation pathways for Europe. It will propose an action plan to reach carbon neutrality and a 100% renewable mix at the European level by 2050 at the very latest.

This scenario will focus on the question of energy sufficiency : how can we rethink and redesign individual and collective practices to favour activities and services that are intrinsically low on energy use ? The sufficiency potential is enormous at the European level, but is rarely considered at its full scale in European decarbonisation pathways. With this work, we hope to show that a comprehensive policy articulating sufficiency, efficiency and renewable development is key to reach the 1,5°C climate goal.

A scenario built on national characteristics

This project is based on a unique approach : the European scenario will be developed through a dialogue with national scenario makers in order to aggregate national visions into a European one. We will promote a European strategy that fully takes into account national specificities while also looking at optimisation gains of a coordinated action at the European level.

A European network of technical partners

This project is led in collaboration with a network of national and European organisations. Since 2018, partners are engaged in technical dialogue to ensure the collective development of this project.
This dialogue has allowed partners to question their work and modelling approaches, and share best practices, which results in built-up capacity and raised ambition. Thematic working groups and methodological meetings are also regularly organised. Through this network, partners have been able to share information on the ways policies or actions are supported in different member States, and how setting conditions may vary from one region to another.

The network includes about 20 partners, covering 18 European countries.

Updated on 06/05/2022

Work plan from 2019 to 2023

• Launching the technical dialogue (June 2019 - June 2020)
  • Validate a common methodological approach (which we refer to as ‘sustainability merit order’) to define fundamentals that will be applied in a coherent way by scenario makers at national and European level.
  • Develop common tools to allow the inter-comparison, modelling, aggregation and integration of European trajectories.
  • Animate the technical dialogue with the network of partners on key issues for the scenario, such as energy sufficiency in building and transport, and industry and materials.
• Developing ambitious national trajectories (May 2020 - May 2022)
  • Translation of existing national exercises into a common language
  • Deepening of the common tools and the exchange on the construction of sufficiency assumptions and on the methodology to be adopted to strengthen national trajectories and cover countries not covered by the network
  • Complete existing national scenarios and build more ambitious trajectories by testing the project’s methodology and looking at all sustainability potentials in covered countries.
• Build a European energy transition strategy based on the aggregation of national visions (January 2022 - Spring 2023)
  • Work on the aggregation of reinforced national trajectories at the European level and their integration within a coordinated strategy, ensuring that climate and energy targets set for the project are reached.
  • Develop narrative aspects, communication tools and disseminate the project’s results to key stakeholders.

Project funding

The budget covers main activities of the project : coordination of the project, animation of the network of partners, participation of members to main technical meetings, development of modelling tools, technical work on the reinforcement of national scenarios, development of the European trajectory, policy and dissemination activities.

négaWatt and its network of partners are looking for additional funding to complete this budget as well as to extend with a view to the upcoming publication and dissemination of the scenario.

Our funders

• Our members and donors
  négaWatt has organised a crowdfunding campaign to support the project in Spring 2019 which resulted in a total of 51 760€ collected. négaWatt has also allocated a part of its overall budget to this project.
• Foundations and others
  Key foundations have been supporting this project since the prefiguration phase : The European Climate Foundation (2050 Pathways Platform), Foundation for the progress of Humankind, Fondation un monde par tous, and Watt for Change foundation.
  The French Agency for ecological transition ADEME also supports the project.

Support the project !

If you have any questions, or would like to support the project, please contact :

• Nicolas TAILLARD, Project manager : nicolas.taillard///at///negawatt.org
• Stephane BOURGEOIS, European relations and policies manager : stephane.bourgeois///at///negawatt.org - +33633320993

Up to date on 06/05/2022