EU declares gas and nuclear power climate-friendly
The EU has classified gas and nuclear power as climate-friendly. Environmental organisations are criticising the decision as greenwashing.
The European Parliament has approved the controversial EU eco-label for gas and nuclear power. 278 MEPs voted to reject the corresponding legal act on the so-called taxonomy, but 353 votes would have been required.
Environmentalists had campaigned ahead of the decisive vote in the European Parliament for a clear rejection of the EU plans to classify investments in gas and nuclear power plants as climate-friendly under certain conditions.
The president of the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), Jörg-Andreas Krüger, also advocated rejecting the proposal. He argued that it would create new fossil fuel dependencies instead of redirecting investment funds towards the urgently needed climate-neutral and nature-compatible expansion of renewable energies.
Following the EU decision, the environmental organisation Greenpeace announced that it would file a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice. The EU must not «deliberately leave investors in the dark about where they can put their money in a climate-friendly and future-proof way», said Greenpeace finance expert Mauricio Vargas after the vote.
The taxonomy is intended to provide investors in European capital markets with a guide to which investments are sustainable and which are not.
Other parts of the taxonomy have already been in force since the beginning of the year. Following the European Parliament’s vote, the way is now clear for investments in nuclear and gas power plants to also be marketed as climate-friendly from January 2023.
The inclusion of gas and nuclear power was highly controversial. The Greens in the European Parliament unanimously rejected the European Commission’s proposal, and opposition was also strong in other parliamentary groups. Even dozens of conservatives were against it.
Opponents reacted with disappointment to their defeat in the vote. “Today’s vote will sooner or later prove to have been a mistake”, said CSU parliamentarian Markus Ferber. It was regrettable that Parliament had “not the courage" had set a sign for a credible taxonomy.
The Green MEP Rasmus Andresen said the taxonomy was now "unusable as a green quality label for financial products". The EU was heading down the wrong path in terms of security and climate policy.
The war in Ukraine had given opponents another argument: promoting gas power plants would ultimately benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin, they had warned. The more money flows into gas power plants, the more gas they would consume. Europe currently sources the vast majority of its gas from Russia. How quickly it can be replaced by liquefied natural gas deliveries remains unclear.
The European Commission had submitted the supplementary delegated act on the taxonomy on New Year's Eve 2021. In doing so, it had made concessions to Germany and France, whose economies are heavily dependent on gas and nuclear power respectively.
In the meantime, the German federal government has positioned itself against the proposal, yet a majority in the EU Council is still considered assured. There is only one remaining hurdle: Austria and Luxembourg intend to bring a legal challenge against the amendment before the European Court of Justice.
