Decarbonising Europe – EU citizens’ perception of renewable energy transition amidst the European Green Deal

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 crisis has imposed a rediscussion of energy transition, offering the chance of promoting socioeconomic and ecological resilience to the energy sector, crucial for the post-pandemic recovery. Our societies are faced with a unique opportunity for changing people's behaviours and improving their lives. In the EU, the Green Deal is saluted as a new package of policy interventions aiming at achieving social goals such as job creation and reducing economic inequality – mostly by means of renewable energy and resource efficiency. However, the ongoing energy transition has been affected by COVID-19-related policy measures. This work proposes to give insights into the EU citizens' pre-pandemic perception of some key renewable energy transition, sustainability and resilience factors, which may be crucial with a view to finding prime energy policy indications useful for the post-pandemic recovery. Making use of 2019 EU Eurobarometer data, selected aspects of EU citizens' perceptions of energy policy are evaluated. Logit regressions are estimated to render energy perceptions modelling. Results suggest evidence of interrelated renewable energy transition issues for the EU, including resilience, vulnerability, cooperation, competition, sovereignty, security, safety and climate change. The findings indicate important social and environmental implications for energy policy modelling. The diversity of sorting results, regional-level differences and embodied domestic characteristics allow for macro-regional explorations.