Legal attack on EU calling nuclear energy and gas ‘sustainable’
Greenpeace and other environmental organizations on Tuesday filed a complaint with the European Court of Justice, contesting which energy sources the EU is willing to support financially as part of its so-called Green New Deal.
In what the European Commission calls a taxonomy for sustainable activities, renewable energies such as wind, solar and hydropower are classified as “sustainable”. That means they can qualify for subsidies and be labeled green by private sector investors, but the same goes for atomic power and natural gas.
Why Greenpeace and Co. opposite?
Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the German group BUND and other NGOs launched the appeal. They are following in the footsteps of the Austrian government, which did the same last October.
“Atomic energy and gas cannot be sustainable,” said Greenpeace Germany’s head of economic and social issues, Nina Treu. “Green money cannot be misused for industries that got us into the natural and climate crisis in the first place. It must flow into renewable energy and to modernize conversions towards a social and green economy.”
BUND President Olaf Bandt said the groups wanted to legally challenge “this brazen form of greenwashing”.
“Supposed climate change through false labeling is not acceptable,” Bandt said. “With the decision to classify natural gas as climate friendly, the European Commission has placed itself on factually and legally unstable ground.”
What is the EU’s rationale for the system?
Several European countries led by France were keen to include nuclear energy among the EU’s sustainable mix, while a bloc led by Germany was equally enthusiastic about natural gas.
Proponents of nuclear energy say it reduces independence from imported energy, for example, Russian fossil fuels, and that its CO2 footprint is extremely low, admittedly discounting other associated environmental concerns.
Natural gas advocates, meanwhile, argue that the technology could bridge the gap between coal, which is much more CO2-intensive than gas, and renewables.
Source: DW
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