Does the Ukraine war expose the new EU taxonomy as a wrong decision?
Created: 03/11/2022 05:33
By: Linus Prien
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen © IMAGO/Nicolas Landemard / Le Pictorium
The Ukraine war shows the dependency between the EU and Russia.
Was it a mistake to include nuclear power and fossil gas in the EU taxonomy?
Hamburg/Berlin - Including nuclear power and fossil gas in the EU taxonomy will not make Germany's energy supply more independent, but more dependent on Russia.
The nationwide anti-nuclear organization ".aussendung" and the environmental and consumer protection organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) have called on the EU Commission to withdraw the draft for the inclusion of nuclear power and fossil gas in the EU taxonomy.
Energy bottlenecks: nuclear power also makes us dependent
Armin Simon from ".aussendung" formulates the following accusation: "The decisive justification of the EU Commission for the inclusion of nuclear power in the EU taxonomy has turned out to be wrong.
Contrary to what the Commission claims, nuclear power does not contribute to security of supply.
On the contrary: The EU is also largely dependent on imports from Russia for uranium and fuel elements for nuclear power plants.”
The federal director of the DUH, Sascha Müller-Kraenner, also points out Germany's immense dependence on Russian gas.
For Müller-Kraenner there is only one solution: "We must radically reduce our dependence on fossil gas by expanding renewable energies and reducing our consumption through energy efficiency measures."
EU taxonomy: Even its own platform of consultants is critical
The EU Commission justified its original decision to include nuclear power and fossil gas in the EU taxonomy with the fact that there was no “technically and economically feasible low-CO₂ alternative” to these energy sources.
The decision of the EU Commission was originally met with criticism.
The EU's own advisory platform "Sustainable Finance" criticized the fact that the EU Commission mixes energy policy and economic aspects, especially security of supply, with questions of sustainability.
This cannot be reconciled with the intention of the EU taxonomy regulation.
Save energy to become independent from Russia
Ursula von der Leyen had already called for saving energy in the past few days in order to become more independent from Russia.
Everyone can contribute to this, said the CDU politician on Wednesday in the ZDF "Morgenmagazin".
The EU Commission President also refers to the expansion of renewable energies.
If you think of everything together, "then we can become independent of Russian gas much more quickly."
(lp/dpa)
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