As president of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), president of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), and a board member of PPC’s own renewable unit, Zervos’s new position is a clear indication that Greece’s newly elected government is taking seriously its campaign commitments for a better environment.

The election campaign featured commitment to boost Greece’s renewable energy credentials toward the goal of attaining a greener, more environmentally friendly economy.

Following Zervos’s appointment to his new position, Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, Tina Birbili, said she expects PPC’s new management to redraft the state corporations investment plan to favour her ministry’s new political direction.

Greece, according to environmental observers, has long been in need of a political shove that would promote green economic growth to boost its ailing economy. The Zervos appointment could signal an important first step toward decarbonising Greece, which currently produces 57 percent of its electricity burning lignite – a process that accounts for 40 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As one of Greece’s now-most powerful energy decision makers, it is imperative that Zervos follow a policy that examines all potential emissions reduction technologies and methods already on hand with sober objectivity.

Zervos’s appointment affords a unique opportunity – under the new PPC business plant that he will oversee – for Greece to accelerate the replacement of numerous aging and polluting lignite units with more efficient ones that will fully employ carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies in a bid to completely counteract **CO2 emissions.

Environmentalists, including Bellona, urge the Greek government and the new leadership of PPC under Zervos to change their tack toward CCS. Renewable energy and CCS should be used in parallel, which will allow Greece to exploit lignite, its only domestic fuel, and thereby achieve its ambitious emissions reduction goals – which will lead to Greece’s complete disentanglement with a coal based energy economy.