Brussels, June 14 – Today, the European Parliament’s Joint Committee on Economic Affairs and Environment (ECON/ENVI) rejected the Commission’s proposal for a Complementary Delegated Act (CDA) on Taxonomy classifying fossil gas and nuclear as “green” activities. Lawmakers succeeded in mobilising comfortable majorities (76/62/4) against this classification system for private investors, qualified as “nonsense” by the financial industry itself.
Incentivising investments in new fossil gas stands at odds with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, achieving the European Union’s 2030 targets which implies reducing fossil gas consumption across the EU by 32-37% and finally, achieving the REPowerEU objective to rapidly reduce the EU’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, notably from Russia.
“Today MEPs gave a red card to “greenwashing” and sent a strong signal to market investors: fossil gas and nuclear should not receive preferential treatment on the basis of a “fake green” classification. The climate emergency requires every single € cent to be steered to the real no regret solutions: energy efficiency and renewables” said Esther Bollendorff, Gas Policy Expert at CAN Europe.
The European Parliament now has to confirm its position on the CDA during the plenary session in the first week of July. In the meantime a growing number of Member States (notably Germany, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal and Malta) shows resistance to the CDA in the Council and increases pressure on the MEP vote in July.
—ENDS—
- Doruntina Basha, doruntina.basha@caneurope.org.
