Greece will “face serious problems” unless it embraces cleaner forms of power production and curbs its use of high-polluting fossil fuels such as lignite, European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has told Sunday’s Kathimerini.

Dimas stopped short of directly criticizing Greece’s energy policy, noting that each EU member state is responsible for taking the measures it deems necessary. “But if clean energies are not embraced, stricter measures will have to be implemented in other areas,” he said.

According to EU statistics, Greece produces 9.2 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per capita annually, compared to an EU average of 8.5 tons, with the Public Power Corporation (PPC) responsible for the largest share of these emissions. Also Greece is the second-worst offender in the EU, after Portugal, in terms of C02 emission increases, having boosted by 124 percent its 1990-level emissions.

According to Dimas, Greece and a few other Mediterranean countries have the potential to produce much of their energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

As for Greece’s dependence on lignite – last year the high-polluting coal accounted for 60 percent of Greece’s energy production – Dimas has “exceptional reservations,” a Commission source said. “Greece should examine the extent to which lignite can remain part of its energy plan and whether this is environmentally viable,” the source said.