Brussels - The European Commission took to the internet on Thursday in an attempt to win European citizens over to the cause of renewable energy. The commission's four-minute clip on web-based broadcaster YouTube, grippingly entitled "20 per cent renewable energy by 2020," presents a collage of footage of wind, solar, hydro-electric and biomass power generators.
The images are accompanied by a voice-over explaining to viewers that the EU as a whole has pledged to boost its usage of renewable power from 8.5 per cent of total consumption - the figure in 2005 - to 20 per cent of total in 2020.
Among the tit-bits of information on renewables are the facts that 20 million square metres of solar heating panels were installed across the EU in 2006, and that the renewable energy sector in Europe accounts for over 350,000 jobs and an annual turnover of 30 billion euros (44.35 billion dollars).
The EU's combined production of wind energy is already equivalent to the total electricity consumption of Denmark and Hungary, the clip says.
On Wednesday the commission is due to propose a law setting out how each EU member state should adjust its national consumption of renewable energy in order to meet the union-wide 20-per-cent pledge.
The proposal looks set to become the centre of a fierce debate as member states haggle over who should bear the brunt of the changeover to renewable power.
