Investments in new gas and nuclear power plants are to be considered climate-friendly in the European Union under certain conditions. Despite massive criticism, the European Commission adopted a corresponding legal act on Wednesday. It even falls short of an original design and relaxes the requirements that a gas-fired power plant must meet to be considered sustainable. Germany in particular had insisted on making the criteria for gas more flexible.
The background to the decision is the current revision of the »EU taxonomy for sustainable, environmentally friendly economic activities«. It lists all those energy systems that, from the EU’s point of view, serve the European climate goals. This should encourage citizens and investors to invest in precisely these climate-friendly technologies in order to achieve the EU’s climate goals.
The now adopted legal act stipulates that investments in new gas-fired power plants will be considered sustainable until 2030 if, among other things, they replace dirtier power plants and are completely operated with more climate-friendly gases such as hydrogen by 2035. The original draft envisaged that climate-friendly gases would be added as early as 2026, the proportion of which would then gradually increase. The energy expert Matthias Buck from the Agora Energiewende think tank called this timetable for the fuel switch the “single hard guard rail” of the taxonomy. Only through them would emission limits be met, as they are necessary for the climate goals of the Federal Republic, he said in an interview with “Spektrum.de” (“Why natural gas should suddenly be sustainable”).
The change to the draft now means that gas-fired power plants may be able to use higher proportions of polluting natural gas for longer. New nuclear power plants are to be classified as sustainable by 2045 if there is a concrete plan for the disposal of radioactive waste from 2050 at the latest.