The Current Picture of the Transition to a Green Economy in the EU—Trends in Climate and Energy Policy versus State Security

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. This paper is quite informative, providing a path vision for EU to develop green economy until 2050. Some minor points remain to clarify or improve.
2. Section 2 is very short (which accounts for half of a page). It provides not much information for the materials and methods.  If this paper is mainly based on literature review as Section 3 indicates, it is strongly suggested that Sections 2 and 3 should be merged as literature review.  The section title of ‘materials and methods’ was followed from the template of this journal but may not be suitable for this paper.
3. Section 3 provides historical viewpoints of green economy. In addition to the paragraphs, there should be a diagram to depict the framework of historical viewpoints to help the readers to have a clear picture of the overall structure of these historical points.
4. Section 4’s title is ‘Results’. However, this section summarizes the status quo in EU.  The title may be changed to be ‘The current green economy situations in EU’.  The relevant paragraphs should be re-written to clearly show that this section is for the current features.
5. Section 5’s title is ‘Discussion’. However, Section 5 is mainly on the development paths of EU’s green economy.  The title of Section 5 should be changed to ‘The development paths of EU’s green economy’.  The relevant paragraphs should be re-written to clearly show that this section is for the future development.
6. Usually there will be no figures and tables in the conclusion. Figure 14 and the related paragraphs should be moved to Section 5.  The Nord and South Streams should be important energy lines to connect regions.  These important major projects should be stated in the section of development paths for the future till 2050.
7. The correspondence among the objectives till 2050 and the policy instruments can be more clearly described. It is important to show that how these objective can be achieved by implementable paths.
8. The grand climate and energy objectives to achieve by 2050 by the green economy development in EU should be clearly summarized by a table or figure. The foreign readers can refer to the objectives and policy instruments of EU to develop their own path maps for green economy.
9. Many references now are technical reports. More academic journal articles should be cited.  The relation of this paper and theories in energy economics and policy can be further elaborated.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

We would like to express our appreciation for the reviews.
Thank you very much for suggestions, which were clear and very accurate.
We made the necessary corrections. We have incorporated all the suggestions because we agreed with them, and thank you especially for such good suggestions to improve our article.
We also added current bibliographic items on the topic in question among scientific journals.
Please find attached the corrected article.

Reviewer 2 Report

COMMENTS
In my opinion, the paper it is not a 'research article' it is something between 'review paper' and 'opinion paper'. The authors adopted the structure of a research article and that was wrong in my opinion.
A general suggestion by me is to totally reformulate the paper according to the style of a 'paper review'. After Introduction to exist the 'main body' with the literature review and the secondary data. In the Discussion section the authors to make their criticism and their evaluation and of course to compare similar studies on the subject. Finally, in the Conclusion section to present generalized conclusion mainly, opinion and documented predictions.
The size of the article is too long and there are many repetitions. For example, in the first parts of the paper, repeated for 3-4 times the objectives of the article and the result is, the aims of the article to be no clear to the reader.
The references are limited. The bibliography needs a brave enrichment. All over the manuscript the authors present analysis on the base of the secondary data that used but without to be convincing the reader in many cases. Need strong arguments or citations which are missing.
In my opinion, the first part of the title (Historical picture of the transition to a green economy in the EU) must be change. The historical data are limited as a part of the literature review section, in the rest manuscript there is mostly view the current situation through the secondary data. So, my suggestion is the reformulation of the title.
Generally, all the text needs reorganize, reformulation and strengthening the critique with more data and documentation. I would suggest that the first subsection after the historical review be on EU energy and climate policies. International agreements and commitments should also be mentioned in a separate subsection, followed by data analysis for each type of energy without underestimating the chapter on renewable energy sources.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

We would like to express our appreciation for the reviews.
Thank you very much for suggestions, which were clear and very accurate.
We made the necessary corrections. We have incorporated all the suggestions because we agreed with them, and thank you especially for such good suggestions to improve our article.
We have reformed the structure and content-related elements of the review article.
We also added current bibliographic items on the topic in question among scientific journals.
Please find attached the corrected article.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper presents a critical review on the history of the European legislation in energy and green economy. Thus, it is proposed to consider the paper a literature review and not an original article. The methodological approach is not scientific. You described the research methods used as a review of the world literature on the subject. This is not reflected in the references. Also the databases used for this literature review are not inserted. In this part it is sprintiate you define the age of searched papers, the number, the main topic, also using maps and images. Also, the database for the  statistical analysis of quantitative data of the largest statistical organizations in the EU and in the world at not described. Define better the links among the historical periods and the legislations. A new link between policies and European research can be inserted. To this purpose the literature reviews https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/949/1/012113 and https://doi.org/10.3390/en14061627 can be added as references to support this part. Conclusions are clear. Explicate bettered the novelty of the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3

We would like to express our appreciation for the reviews.
Thank you very much for suggestions, which were clear and very accurate.
We made the necessary corrections. We have incorporated all the suggestions because we agreed with them, and thank you especially for such good suggestions to improve our article.
We have reformed the structure and content-related elements of the review article.
We have also reviewed the suggested bibliographic items and added them in the appropriate places, as well as other current references on the topic in question among scientific journals.
Please find attached the corrected article.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for adopting my comments and suggestions to the revised version of the manuscript. I believe that the structural reformulation of the manuscript was successfully done and the manuscript improved significantly after the revised. 
However, there are some comments which related mostly with readability of the paper.
1. The manuscript remains too long. Some repetitions remain also here and there. It is important the reader easy understands the text (especially when mentioning to such complicated subjects).
2. Please exam the usefulness of all the figures (for some of these a citation is enough, because follows the analysis).
3. The Conclusions section must content conclusions only (even if we have to do with a review paper). It is important the size reduce of this section and focused to the generalized conclusions which born from the analyses and evaluations of the previous sections.
4. I insist, the references must enrich more. The authors added crucial references (more than 15 titles) but in the text there are many big paragraphs without one citation.

Author Response

Manuscript energies-1455208

Response to 2^nd Review

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for the positive reception of the article and suggestions to improve our article. We made the necessary corrections.

We would like to refer to the detailed reviewer’s suggestions below:

The manuscript remains too long. Some repetitions remain also here and there. It is important the reader easy understands the text (especially when mentioning to such complicated subjects). Please exam the usefulness of all the figures (for some of these a citation is enough, because follows the analysis).

Authors’ response: As suggested, we removed the repetitions that referred to the same thematic descriptions. Some descriptions have been redrafted and shortened, thanks to which the article is shorter and clearer for the reader.

The Conclusions section must content conclusions only (even if we have to do with a review paper). It is important the size reduce of this section and focused to the generalized conclusions which born from the analyses and evaluations of the previous sections.

Authors’ response: Thank you for pointing this out. The conclusions section has been shortened and corrected to contain only general conclusions referring to the whole article.

I insist, the references must enrich more. The authors added crucial references (more than 15 titles) but in the text there are many big paragraphs without one citation.

Authors’ response: The analysis was expanded to include new scientific sources that have been added where appropriate. Also, further bibliographic items were obtained among publications in scientific journals that supported certain descriptions and recommendations contained in the article.

1. Fazioli, R.; Pantaleone, F. Macroeconomic Factors Influencing Public Policy Strategies for Blue and Green Hydrogen. Energies 2021, 14, 7938. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14237938.
2. European Commission. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe; Global CCS Institute: Global Status of CCS 2020; European Commission: Brussels, Belgium, 2020.
3. Cadoret, I.; Padovano, F. The political drivers of renewable energies policies. Energy Econ. 2016, 56, 261–269.
4. Global Economy, World Economy. 2021. Available online: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/ (accessed on 15 November 2021).
5. Nicolli, F.; Vona, F. Heterogeneous policies, heterogeneous technologies: The case of renewable energy. Energy Econ. 2016, 56, 190–204.
6. Stavytskyy, A.; Kharlamova, G.; Giedraitis, V.; Šumskis, V. Estimating the interrelation between energy security and macroeconomic factors in European countries. Int. Stud. 2018, 11, 217–238.
7. Ding, H.; Zhou, D.; Zhou, P. Optimal policy supports for renewable energy technology development: A dynamic programming model. Energy Econ. 2020, 92, 104765.
8. Noailly, J.; Smeets, R. Financing Energy Innovation: Internal Finance and the Direction of Technical Change. Resour. Econ. 2021, 1–25.
9. Safarzyńska, K.; Bergh, J.C.V.D. Financial stability at risk due to investing rapidly in renewable energy. Energy Policy, 2017, 108, 12–20.

 

We have incorporated all the suggestions made by the reviewers. Those changes are highlighted within the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

Thanks again for the clear review and suggestions for corrections to improve our article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf