European Green Deal in the context of "Resource-efficient"

Resource efficiency is the maximising of the supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively, with minimum wasted (natural) resource expenses. It means using the Earth's limited resources in a sustainable manner while minimising environmental impact. Natural resource efficiency is embedded into the work of initiatives like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and international strategies such as the European Union's "Green Deal".

The energy policy of the European Union focuses on energy security, sustainability, and integrating the energy markets of member states. An increasingly important part of it is climate policy. A key energy policy adopted in 2009 is the 20/20/20 objectives, binding for all EU Member States. The target involved increasing the share of renewable energy in its final energy use to 20%, reduce greenhouse gases by 20% and increase energy efficiency by 20%. After this target was met, new targets for 2030 were set at a 55% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as part of the European Green Deal. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU's energy policy turned more towards energy security in their REPowerEU policy package, which boosts both renewable deployment and fossil fuel infrastructure for alternative suppliers.

Eurocities is a network of large cities in Europe, established in 1986 by the mayors of six large cities: Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan, and Rotterdam. Today, Eurocities members include over 200 of Europe's major cities from 38 countries, which between them represent over 130 million people.

Eurocities is one of the major city networks in the EU. It is an example of how city diplomacy is seeking influence and prominence in the established world of international relations. At the EU level, Eurocities promotes the implementation of the European Union's subsidiarity principle. This offers multiple opportunities to engage and influence EU initiatives and policies, especially on urban development and more recently the European Green Deal. Eurocities is sometimes seen as an interest group more focused on re-establishing the power of the city over the nation-state, rather than connecting EU citizens across cities and borders. Recently, EU mayors of the network have tried to raise their global profile for their efforts to tackle climate change.

Fit for 55 is a package by the European Union designed to reduce the European Union's greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. It is part of the union's strategy of the European Green Deal presented first in December 2019.

The package was proposed by the European Commission in July 2021. After being tabled in 2021, the plans were passed in 2023. Measures include additional support for clean transport, renewables, and a tariff called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on emissions for high-carbon imports from countries lacking sufficient greenhouse gas reduction measures of their own. It proposes to extend the European Union Emissions Trading System to transport and heat. Compared to the net-zero scenario from the International Energy Agency, the plan contains more measures to ensure that energy remains affordable.

REPowerEU is a strategy adopted by the European Commission in May 2022 in response to the sharp rise in energy prices and the energy security risks that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The energy crisis triggered by the invasion of Ukraine led to a significant increase in electricity prices across Europe, partly due to the structure of the EU electricity market, where prices are often set by the marginal cost of production. As natural gas prices rise sharply in 2021 and 2022, electricity prices increased accordingly, making the reduction of dependence on imported gas a central objective of EU energy policy.

Against this backdrop, REPowerEU aims to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, improve energy efficiency, and strengthen the resilience of the EU energy system. This initiative combines short-term crisis response measures, such as demand reduction and diversification of energy supply, with longer-term structural reforms. It is also closely aligned with the EU’s climate objectives under the European Green Deal.