European leaders: end energy poverty now!

68 national and international organisations call on EU governments to end energy poverty. 

Dear European leaders,

Europe today is facing a twin challenge: rising inequality and a dangerously warming world. Linked to both, energy poverty – due to low incomes, high energy prices and low-quality housing stock – is on the rise.

Energy poverty affects up to one in four people in Europe (1). With rising prices, arrears in utility bills have increased 40% (2) across the continent since the 2008 financial crisis. 80 million Europeans (3) are living in inadequate, unhealthy homes, impossible to keep warm or cool, exposing households to extreme weather and causing an estimated 100,000 deaths every year (4), as well as contributing to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and worsened mental health.

Energy poverty and inadequate housing harm in winter as well as summer. During the winter, 50 million (5) people cannot keep their homes warm. In summer, the problem of sweltering homes is set to amplify with climate change. Fifteen years ago, 2003’s deadly heat wave killed 70,000 people, and deaths due to more intense heat-waves could increase 50-fold by the end of the century (Forzieri, 2017). Southern European countries are on the frontline, with an increasing number of households reporting they cannot afford to comfortably keep cool in summer.

Access to energy is a basic human right and should be protected as such. European legislation has required EU Member States to act on energy poverty since 2009; a decade later, less than a third of governments have even officially recognised the problem.

It’s time to combat energy poverty, inadequate homes, and climate change together. We, a European coalition of trade unions, anti-poverty organisations, health organisations, family associations, community energy projects, social housing providers, and environmental NGOs, call upon governments to ensure the right to energy for all in the 2030 EU energy package.

A first step is to recognise and define energy poverty in the Governance Regulation of the Energy Union. Governments must also take concrete action. To make homes part of the solution, they must initiate massive renovation programmes across the continent with an ambitious Energy Efficiency Directive. In the Renewable Energy Directive, they must support local community energy projects that reduce energy poverty on the ground. Finally, to protect Europeans unable to pay their bills and ensure access to energy, Member States should ban disconnections for low-income and vulnerable households and ensure a minimum quantity of energy to all Europeans in the Electricity Market Directive.

The clock is ticking, and the window of opportunity is closing. What will your legacy be?

End energy poverty now!

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