The European Parliament voted Wednesday not to block a proposed rule that would allow gas-fired nuclear power plants to be labeled as “climate friendly”. The rule will enter into force unless 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) jointly block it.
In the EU, there is a “taxonomy” or set of rules that determine what types of energy investments can be called “green”. The terminology is considered useful for marketing purposes and attracting investors seeking eco-friendly projects. Green projects are also eligible for concessional government loans or even direct government subsidies.
Taxonomy should avoid “greenwashing,” loosely defined as the false claim that a project is climate-friendly, even if radical greens derisively use the term for any facility they think is not clean enough.
limits approved 328-278 The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, will add several natural gas and nuclear energy projects to the classification starting next year.
Environmentalists denounced the move and staged a demonstration in front of the European Parliament to express their dissatisfaction with the continued opposition to nuclear power, albeit “clean”.
EU Parliament supports green labeling of gas and nuclear investments https://t.co/Jc5jybeDJR pic.twitter.com/bmXi6njBbK
– Reuters (@Reuters) 6 July 2022
“This is dirty politics and calling gas and nuclear power ‘green’ and keeping more money in Putin’s military coffers is an outrageous result, but now we will fight it in the courts,” cried Ariadna Rodrigo of EU Greenpeace.
How Associated press As mentioned, nuclear power is undoubtedly “clean” and “climate friendly” by any scientific definition of the terms, as it produces no carbon emissions. Green purists insist that nuclear power is too dangerous to play a large role in achieving carbon neutrality.
Also liquefied natural gas (LNG) ecologically clean By any reasonable definition, approximately 30% less carbon dioxide than heating oil and 45% less carbon dioxide than coal, as well as greatly reduced or zero emissions of other compounds considered harmful to the environment. Vegetables despise LNG because it is a “fossil fuel”.
Various factions in the EU argue that achieving the bloc’s ambitious goals of carbon neutrality is only possible with the large-scale deployment of nuclear power or LNG. Some politicians in Europe support one technology and reject the other – for example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dislikes nuclear power, but sees LNG as “an important bridging technology for us on the road to CO2 neutrality”.
Climate activists on Wednesday denounced the European Parliament’s vote as a “legal exception” and complained that classifying gas and nuclear projects as climate-friendly would divert subsidies and investment from preferred technologies.
Some critics have also pointed out that Europe depends heavily on natural gas supplies from Russia. The EU has banned It works to limit or ban Russian coal and Russia’s oil, but eliminating Russia’s natural gas would be impossible.
Germany The new rules cited some class distinctions in the EU, as the less affluent bloc members wanted reliable and affordable energy supplied by gas and nuclear power plants.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, for example, said that the vote in the European Parliament was “good news not only for the Czech Republic, but for the whole of Europe” because it “paved the way for energy self-sufficiency”. It is absolutely necessary for our country.” tomorrow. “
Source: Breitbart
