As the European Union moves forward with formulating the European Green Deal, including a 2050 decarbonisation target, related reviews, ambition increases and updates of the 2030 National energy and climate plans (NECPs) are under way in EU countries. Greece is no exception as it moves ahead with its design and implementation of corresponding policies and measures.

However, these policies must promote a “just transition” and be socially accepted in order to be effective and robust. Ideally, citizens should take part in the selection of these policies, by being informed and expressing their preferences on the available options.

The PARIS REINFORCE project, along with the Hellenic Society for the Environment and Culture and the Convergences Greece Forum, co-organised a national stakeholder workshop on climate change, energy and the national context, aiming to explore the available alternatives, on Tuesday, January 28, 2020, while giving the opportunity to stakeholders from industry, government and the civil society to get informed, discuss, raise concerns and help decide the way forward.

The workshop included 3 sessions on "Business, Energy & Environment", "Sustainable Energy Planning - Technologies and Policies" and "Geothermal Energy", as well as a roundtable discussion on "Sustainable Energy Sources: Economy, Society, Environment and the case of Wind Turbines". After the latter an online voting took place in order to gather the stakeholders' perceptions on which topics they consider the most important to be further explored by PARIS REINFORCE and which factors they believe are the most impactful (either positively or negatively) towards a wide-scale deployment of renewable energy sources and the implementation of the Greek National Energy and Climate Plan.

The workshop's agenda is available in english here.

Find below the workshop's presentations and stay tuned on the online voting results by subscribing in our newsletter.

Welcome - Introduction

Costas Carras - Welcome speech

Haris Doukas - Welcome speech

1^st Keynote speech

Christos Zerefos - Climate Change in Greece from ancient times to the future

1^st Session: Business, Energy & Environment

George Prokopiou

Costantza Sbokou-Konstantakopoulos - Sustainable Tourism Development and Climate Change

Yannis Retsos - Tourism and climate change: adapting to the new era

2^nd Session: Sustainable Energy Planning - Technologies and Policies

Alice Corovessi - Energy savings in buildings in the light of the EU Green Deal and the Clean Energy Package

Dimitris Zontanos - Project Hellinikon Sustainable Energy Planning, Technologies and Policies

Athanasios Stoumbos - The prospects of hydrogen as an energy carrier

Xenophon Verikios - Hydrogen production for economic growth and climate change slowdown

Alexandra Sdoukou - The Decade of Green Development

Lampros Kontogeorgos - The EU Green Deal

2^nd Keynote speech

Alexandra Mitsotaki - The Convergences Greece Forum

Kostas Synolakis

3^rd Session: Geothermal Energy

Michalis Fytikas - The geothermal potential of Greece

Kostas Papavassiliou - Geothermal potential in Macedonia and Thrace - Prospects and potential for exploitation

Konstantinos Mavros - Geothermal energy as a baseload energy

Giannis Paleokrassas - Geothermal energy: Known in the past, Unkown today

Roundtable discussion "Sustainable Energy Sources: Economy, Society, Environment and the Case of Wind Turbines"

Panayiotis Pafilis - Biodiversity and wind farms

Diletta Zeni - Wind power and the energy transition

Panayiotis Fokas - Pagoulatos - Degradation of the natural and cultural environment in the name of its protection? The problem of the placement of Wind Power Plants in protected, mountainous and island areas

Stephan Wrage - Skysails Power - Revolutionary Airborne Wind Energy System

Apostolis Kaltsis

Ioannis Georgizas - Sustainable Development and Local Communities

Tim Salmon

Voting Session

Alexandros Nikas - Voting

The workshop's page in Greek is available here.