Dear reader,
the EU Commission is obviously wildly determined to ruin its hitherto entirely passable climate policy reputation.
Because despite considerable criticism, Brussels is sticking to the proposal made at the end of December to temporarily classify nuclear power and even fossil gas as “sustainable”.
On Wednesday, Brussels presented the relevant legal act on the taxonomy.
This is surprising given that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has positioned the EU internationally as a climate pioneer with the “Green New Deal” in recent years.
The goal is to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent in the world by 2050.
And the idea of the taxonomy is actually a good one: By the EU awarding a kind of seal of approval for perfectly green investments, investors can orient themselves better and prove more easily that they are investing their money in sustainable projects.
As a result, more money would flow into the energy transition, according to the plan.
However, wanting to include a climate-damaging fossil fuel such as gas in this regulation is a first-class trick.
Resistance forms in the European Parliament
Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands are now calling for gas to be removed from the taxonomy, because it is scientifically untenable to describe it as "green".
In addition, approval of the plan in the EU Parliament is no longer as certain as it first seemed.
"I see a chance that this taxonomy will not find a majority," says Joachim Schuster, the economic policy spokesman for the SPD group.
350 MPs would be needed for a rejection, 100 to 150 votes were still missing.
The Green Group is against it anyway.
Markus Ferber, economic policy spokesman for the Christian Democrats in Parliament, says: "It will be close to voting."
There are now two possibilities for how this all turns out.
Either the proposal goes through in Parliament and the Council of Ministers (which is more likely) and thus sets new standards in state-organized greenwashing.
Or: The EU parliamentarians somehow still manage to bring down the entire project - which would then be quite embarrassing for the designers and also does not solve the problem of how to secure investments in bridging technologies that are not sustainable, but which will still be needed for a while to accompany the energy transition.
If gas goes away, will coal come back?
Because you really want the energy source when you see what could otherwise threaten: As a study by the think tank Ember has just shown, the exploding gas prices are helping to delay the demise of coal power - the most climate-damaging form of energy production par excellence.
Coal-fired power generation in the EU has fallen in recent years, with renewables and gas filling the gap.
Since 2019, however, coal use has only fallen by three percent, compared with a minus of 29 percent in the two years before.
Because gas has become extremely expensive, new wind and solar power capacities are now increasingly crowding out gas capacities from the market, while coal is hardly doing so. From a climate protection perspective, the most urgent task should be to end all coal use - as quickly as possible.
Real climate protection doesn’t work with gas – but probably not without it temporarily either.
Setting incentives for the operation of corresponding backup power plants would therefore be correct.
This does not mean that fossil fuels need to be classified as »sustainable«.
And neither should you.
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The topics of the week
Conflicts over wind power expansion: distancing yourself from distance rules
Germany must build more wind turbines.
only where?
The German Advisory Council on the Environment is in favor of surprising proposals.
Evaluation of satellite data: Greenland contributes so much to the sea rise
What is five times the size of Germany, up to three kilometers thick - and has been steadily decreasing for 25 years?
That's right, the ice in Greenland.
The consequences are already noticeable and will last for a very, very long time.
Yield from floating solar systems: Photovoltaics go swimming
Planners of solar parks often cannot find space for their projects.
Are plants in the water the solution?
Head of the Parisian nuclear power company Orano: "No one in Europe has ever died from nuclear waste"
Can nuclear power really be green?
Philippe Knoche talks about the French love of nuclear energy, the Germans' fear of radioactivity - and what it has to do with the Romantic era.
40-year evaluation: extreme weather damage in Germany totals 110 billion euros
In a European comparison, storms have caused the greatest damage in Germany over the past 40 years.
The EU Environment Agency EEA also sees a “huge random effect”.
Stay Confident
Yours, Kurt Stukenberg