In particular, if further recovery measures are taken, they should focus on:
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A large scale-up of energy efficiency and building sector retrofits through direct governmentinvestments and loans to house owners as well as small and medium-sized businesses. Thiswill provide jobs and opportunities in sectors such as construction, which have been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn.
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Renewables require liquidity measures to mobilize private sector investment on a large scalerapidly. Green infrastructure banks, loan guarantees and green bonds could perform this urgenttask of helping renewables over a liquidity hump.
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Upgrading physical infrastructure, such as investment in electricity grid upgrades andextensions (e.g. a Supergrid). This is especially important for large-scale renewabledeployment. In particular, interconnectors and regional networks must be rapidly developed togive markets confidence that the infrastructure will be there when large scale renewablecapacities are built.
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Infrastructure investments must be targeted towards low-carbon transport where possible.
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Supporting clean technology markets by financing of clean-technology projects by providing and expanding feed-in tariffs, renewable portfolio standards, guarantees and loans.
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A review of national procurement guidelines with the aim of going carbon neutral.
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Initiation of flagship projects, such as the Supergrid.
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Significant increase in the spending on Research and Development (R&D) related to energyefficiency, electro-mobility, renewables and CCS.
The EU Economic Recovery Plan
As part of the implementation of the EU recovery plan endorsed by the European Council inDecember 2008, last 28 January the European Commission proposed to reallocate €5 billion of unspent EU money, mostly to support CCS projects, offshore wind farms and the deploymentof broadband Internet connections in rural areas.Under the Commission plans, a total of €3.5 billion would be devoted to clean energy projects.The investment in CCS projects proposed by the European Commission is justified due to itsglobal importance as a technology that developing countries will also need to adopt if the fightagainst climate change is to be effective. However, GLOBE Europe supports the EuropeanParliament's proposal to redirect unspent funds by September 2010 to renewables and energyefficiency, which can be employed immediately, can create millions of jobs and must be thelong-term solution to climate change.-3-
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