While heatwaves intensify across the continent, Europe is once again faced with its overreliance on fossil fuels. The current energy crisis hits low income households the hardest as rising prices take up a larger part of their income. Behind the difficulties they face to cool or heat their homes lies a more general lack of access to essential services such as energy, housing and transport across Europe.
The briefing shows that the current energy crisis reinforces the need to pursue a just transition by upping public investments into what Counter Balance calls ‘green public services’ — sectors which must ensure people’s access to affordable services while urgently needing to be decarbonised. Affordable and clean housing, energy, and public transport must be both socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
Drawing on evidence from across Europe, the briefing highlights how investments focused solely on market solutions often fail to combine decarbonisation and reaching vulnerable communities. Instead, it calls for scaling up EU public investment programs like the Public Sector Loan Facility, which applies blended finance to public-public cooperation and a stronger role for public banks, particularly the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, in financing projects that reduce emissions while safeguarding households and workers’ rights to access essential services. The self-proclaimed EU Climate Bank must scale up its investments into the decarbonisation of sectors whilst ensuring supported projects deliver the widest social benefits.
