Climate Now Debate: How do we boost Europe's wind sector and meet EU climate goals?

The EU has put its oar behind the promise of wind power. With initiatives like REPowerEU increasing the target for wind-generated electricity, the next decade will hopefully see massive growth in the production of wind farms.

Why is wind power such an important source of renewable energy, how and where will we install these new wind farms, and how can we counter any negative side effects the energy source brings?

These questions and more will be at the heart of the next Euronews Debate, hosted by the team behind Climate Now - a monthly programme where we give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source, analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing.

You can follow the Euronews debate in this article on May 3 at 11:00 CEST.

Renewable energy has become both a political and existential goal of the EU in the past few years. On an existential level, it is crucial that we reduce our reliance on carbon-based sources of electrical energy in order to halt climate change. But it is only recently that the political benefits of reliable EU-sourced renewable energy have become so readily apparent.

Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU relied on Russia for 44 per cent of its gas – it is clear then for both climate and political reasons, the EU must reduce its reliance on this resource.

The EU had 189 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity at the end of 2021. Although that is a decent amount already, it is a long way off newly set targets. The European Commission’s Green Deal had previously put the wind power capacity target at 450 GW by 2030. The recent REPowerEU proposal has upped that goal to 480 GW by 2030.

The REPowerEU initiative has been brought in as a response to the Russian energy crisis.

“We must