The 2021-2030 Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan.

Following EU’s accession to the Paris Agreement and with the publication of the EU Strategy, the Union has taken a leading role in the fight against climate change by the five prime dimensions: energy safety, decarbonisation, energy efficiency, the energy internal market, and research, innovation and competitiveness. The European Union has thus committed itself to leading energy transition globally by achieving the climate change targets of the Paris Agreement, which concern the supply of clean energy throughout the Union. In order to meet this commitment, the European Union has established energy and climate targets for 2030, as follows: the target of at least 40 % domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990; the target of 32 % renewable energy consumption in 2030; the target of 32.5 % for improvements in energy efficiency in 2030; the 15 % electricity interconnection target by 2030. Consequently, in order to ensure the achievement of these targets, each Member State was required to submit a draft Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP) to the European Commission for the period 2021-2030 by 31 December 2018. The draft INECPs establish the national targets and shares in the achievement of the EU climate change targets. Consequently, Romania submitted its draft INECP on that date. The approach to the five dimensions of the EU considered a multitude of strategies at various stages of preparation or approval, which were conceived by the ministries/stakeholders, taking account of the convergence and development priorities of Romania as an EU Member State. This Plan integrates, as a priority, the objectives and strands established through the specific energy and climate strategies, at the same time being based on the programmatic documents initiated by other ministries/authorities. As such, the approach proposed to identify a set of priorities that lead to the achievement of the revised objectives committed to, having regard to the available resources, the need to ensure affordable transition for the industry and the consumers and the institutional implementational capacity. Similarly to the Union’s perspective to build its energy and environmental policy around five pillars by 2030, this Plan was established on a series of core elements for defining the role and contribution of Romania to the strengthening of the European Union. In this respect, the main elements taken into account in the strategic approach to the Plan were the following: - developing the holistic energy, economy, environment and climate change approach by closely correlating it with the economic reality of Member States, lest the domestic macroeconomic and social balance be affected; - restructuring the market framework in the context of the entailing transition costs and the Member States’ capacity to sustain such costs in terms of accessibility and competitiveness; - the economic growth and income per household (by 2030); - reduction in energy poverty.
Romania plans to make a fair contribution to the achievement of the decarbonisation target of the EU and will follow the best environmental protection practices. The application of the EUETS scheme and compliance with the annual emissions targets for the non-ETS sectors are the main commitments to achieve the targets. For the sectors covered by the EU-ETS scheme, the overall emissions reduction target of Romania reaches approximately 44 % by 2030 compared to 2005. As regards the share of renewable energy, the European Commission recommended Romania to increase the level of ambition for 2030 up to a share of renewable energy of at least 34 %. Consequently, the level of ambition regarding the share of renewable energy was revised compared to the updated version of the INECP from an initially proposed share of 27.9 % to 30.7 %. The new target was mainly calculated based on the Commission’s recommendation to align the national macroeconomic projections to those in the “Ageing Report: economic and budgetary projections for the EU-27 Member States (2016-2070)”, correlatively decommissioning the coal-based capacities. As regards the energy security dimension, the Commission recommended a description of the support measures that facilitate the achievement of the energy security targets, with an emphasis on diversification of energy sources and reduction in energy dependency. In order to ensure energy security at national level, Romania has taken, and commits to take, measures in order to implement several projects on diversification of resources. The decarbonisation process will also be influenced by the achievement of the following strategic objectives pertaining to the circular economy: o increasing the municipal waste reusage and recycling rate to a minimum 70 % by 2030 (a minimum of 50 % by the end of 2025); o reducing the amount of stored municipal biodegradable waste to 35 % of the amount of municipal biodegradable waste generated in 1995, by the end of 2020; o by 2025, storing only waste undergoing prior treatment operations; o increasing the package waste recycling rate to 80 % by 2030, with the interim target of 60 % by 2020 and 70 % by 2025; o prohibiting storage of recyclable materials such as plastics, metal, glass, paper and cardboard, and of biodegradable waste by 2025, completely removing storage of waste by 2030; o developing the markets of high quality secondary raw material, including by assessing the value added by the criteria establishing the end of the status of waste applicable to certain materials; o increasing the energy recovery rate to a minimum of 15 % by the end of 2025; o increasing the rate of separate collection of recyclable waste by three fractions (paper and cardboard, plastic and metal and glass) in order to reach a minimum collection rate of 52 % in each county and in the Bucharest Municipality.