Romania needs the Black Sea gas resources to reach its ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that it has undertaken through the Green Deal, the Minister of Economy, Energy and Business Virgil Popescu said on Monday.

“The Green Deal, the European Green Pact, is the hot topic of this year. Through the Green Deal, the European Union aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 55% by 2030, a great ambition Romania has accessed and I think we can achieve it. By 2050, the EU has an even greater ambition to achieve emission neutrality,” the minister said.

Popescu stressed that for Romania, which provides 25% of its energy using coal, achieving these targets means a lot of work. “We have launched in the public debate the Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate Change, where Romania has assumed a very ambitious target of 30.7% for renewable energy in 2030. Of course, some may wonder why it is below the European average of 32% or why we increased from 24% to just 30%. I think it is a very ambitious and realistic target that can be reached. Romania must assume realistic targets that it can achieve. If we think that in 2027-2028 some of the current renewable capacity go out of use, then 30% is an even more ambitious target, because we need to be able to replace what we had and install new other capacities,” said the government official, according to Agerpres.

He recalled that Romania has the plan to convert some coal-fired power generation groups to reduce emissions in thermal power stations.