Greenpeace Denounces European Commision's Decision to Label Gas, Nuclear Energy "Green"

Non-governmental environmental organisation Greenpeace has denounced the recent decision of the European Commission to label nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable - a proposal which Luxembourg had actively opposed.

On Wednesday 2 February 2022, the European Commission officially presented its plans to include nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable investment activities in the so-called "EU Taxonomy".

Greenpeace has publicly condemned this decision, arguing that it will "incentivise potentially hundreds of billions of euros in private investments to flow away from clean energy like renewables and instead go to nuclear energy and fossil gas, accelerating the climate crisis".

The independent campaigning organisation went on to argue that, in addition to "producing dangerous and unmanageable radioactive waste", nuclear reactors "take so long to build that they cannot be commissioned in time to contribute to reaching EU climate targets by 2030".

Regarding natural gas, Greenpeace reiterated that this is "the single most polluting fuel in the EU, with soaring prices sparking a European energy crisis".

Greenpeace EU sustainable finance campaigner Ariadna Rodrigo commented: "This proposal, which goes against scientific recommendations, discredits the EU's claims to play a leading role in climate and environment matters". 

According to Greenpeace, the Platform on Sustainable Finance, a body of more than 50 experts from business, academia and civil society, which advises the European Commission on its sustainable financial policy, said in its official response to the plan that the provisions on nuclear energy, particularly radioactive waste, "violate a key principle of the taxonomy, which aims to ensure that any technologies included 'do no significant harm" to the environment".

Greenpeace also cited the response of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, whose members represent more than €50 trillion in assets, which argued that the Commission's proposals on gas would "channel capital towards activities not compatible with the EU's commitment to climate neutrality by 2050”.

Similarly, environmental lawyers at the non-profit organisation Client Earth have said that the inclusion in the taxonomy of fossil gas would be "incompatible with several EU laws".

Greenpeace added that several governments and organisations are "reportedly planning legal challenges to the inclusion of gas and nuclear in the taxonomy".

Next steps

According to Greenpeace, the European Commission's plan is expected to "face an immediate backlash" from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who have been "cut out of the process and denied the chance to scrutinise this controversial plan until now".

For its part, Greenpeace has called on MEPs to vote against this proposal. The organisation has also asked all financial institutions in the EU "not to categorise nuclear and gas investments as environmentally sustainable and to be transparent and science-based about their energy and climate investment decisions".