Several environmental organizations want to sue the new EU rules classifying nuclear power plants and gas infrastructure as climate-friendly projects from January. Among others, the WWF, Greenpeace and the BUND are calling on the European Commission to withdraw the relevant regulation, according to reports released on Monday. Brussels authorities now have until February to respond. Otherwise, environmentalists want to go to the European Court of Justice (CJ).
The background is the so-called taxonomy. In it, the Commission lists areas where citizens and businesses can invest money to fight climate change. Starting in January, nuclear power and gas will also be named climate-friendly under certain conditions. This is controversial because burning the gas produces climate-damaging carbon dioxide and there is no definitive solution to radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. EU countries and the EU Parliament agreed on the classification.
Eight Greenpeace offices – including the Austrian office – objected to the classification. It violates European climate laws and the principles of taxonomy itself, it said in a statement. Furthermore, it contradicts the Paris climate accord’s goals of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees if possible.
“The EU taxonomy gives nuclear and gas power a green thumb and undermines the EU’s environmental and climate goals. We call on the Commission to reverse this misconception. If you don’t give in, we will go to court,” announced Jasmin Duregger, an energy expert. of Greenpeace in Austria, in a broadcast. “With this taxonomy, the EU reveals the environmental and climate goals it has set itself,” said Martin Kaiser, board member of Greenpeace Germany.
Greenpeace backs its argument with two new reports: The Aurora Energy Research article shows that the controversial legal act would link Europe to climate-damaging energy gas in the long term and delay the energy transition. In his report, physicist Oda Becker shows that new nuclear power plants cannot be a transitional technology because they undermine the European 2050 climate neutrality target: subsequent construction and uptime to consider. On the other hand, nuclear energy is not CO2 neutral.
WWF, BUND and two other organizations also filed a motion specifically to challenge the inclusion of gas in the taxonomy. The gas industry is at the center of the EU’s cost-of-living crisis due to high prices, and its promotion undermines the EU’s energy transition goals, a spokesperson for the organizations said.
Another group of environmentalists, including Robin Wood, filed an annulment suit before the Court of Justice on Friday. In particular, this fights the climate-friendly rating of bioenergy and forestry projects, as this drives forest destruction and increases CO2 emissions. The EU Commission must ensure that there are no financial incentives for industrial heating of forests, said Jana Ballenthien of Robin Wood.
Last week, several organizations such as the WWF also resigned in protest at the advisory platform that had jointly developed the taxonomy with the commission. They criticized that the authority intervened in their work for political reasons and ignored the advisers’ recommendations contrary to scientific evidence.