EU unveils controversial green label for gas, nuclear

Bloomberg

The European Union (EU) unveiled how it plans to label investments in some gas and nuclear projects as sustainable, a move that has divided member states as the energy transition collides with political reality.
The European Commission on Wednesday announced technical amendments to its draft green-label criteria and proposed strengthening disclosure rules to ensure more transparency for investors. Yet the changes failed to alleviate concerns by environmental activists and some investors over the risk of greenwashing and diverting money away from renewables.
The measure will now be scrutinised by national governments, but those opposing it may find it hard to block, as EU law requires at least 20 member states to reject the plan for that to happen. The positions of member states vary: the Netherlands and Denmark oppose including natural gas because they don’t rely on such plants, while Germany — which is phasing out nuclear — criticised the green label for atomic power.
The label system is being closely watched by investors to know what projects will count as green, and could potentially attract billions of euros in private finance to aid the shift to a low-carbon economy. The challenge is ensuring that the decision on nuclear and gas gets enough political support, at a time when some lobbies say those forms of energy shouldn’t be included at all.
The EU wants to reach climate neutrality under its Green Deal, a sweeping overhaul that touches everything from energy supply to manufacturing to transport. Yet the recent energy crisis has highlighted the challenge of cutting dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power that offers reliable supplies.
“Today we’re taking another important step in the transition to climate-neutral economy,” Financial Markets Commissioner Mairead McGuinness said. “We need the private sector to play its full part and that’s where the taxonomy comes in.”