EU wants tech institute to fight climate change

European commission president José Manuel Barroso today linked the proposed European Institute of Technology to the debate on global warming.

Speaking in Brussels after a meeting with an advisory panel of energy and climate change experts, Barroso said the EU will need to pool research if it wants to achieve the technological breakthroughs necessary to tackle global warming.

“If I was already convinced of the need of an European institute of technology,  I am now five times more convinced”, he told the press.

The EIT should be “first and foremost devoted to energy policy, energy security and climate change”, Barroso stressed.

Brussels has been calling to set up the EIT since 2005.

Initially modelled in the USA’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the latest version is a network of knowledge and innovation communities embracing both industry and academia.

Members of the advisory panel on climate change include Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the influential Stern report of the economics of climate change, the EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas and the head of the International Energy Agency Claude Mandil.

“This is not a propaganda panel. This is a panel with the world’s top experts on climate change”, Barroso said.

The European commission is also set to push for a deal on CO2 cuts at G8 level in order to get all the world's major industrial economies on board. 

Barroso emphasised that the commission has made a point of having the German presidency's sherpa to the G8 Hans Joachim Schellnhuber among the members of the advisory panel.

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