Spain stands out from the battle between France and Germany, Nuclear vs. Gas, to access the green taxonomy

The Third Vice President of the Spanish Government, Teresa Ribera, considers that the confrontation between France and Germany to include, respectively, nuclear energy and gas in the list of “green investments” of the European Union generates a “distortion” in the set of environmental action.

“We from Spain believe that, regardless of the fact that they may have a singular consideration as technologies that can accompany the transition, it is good that they are not included in that list of green taxonomy,” the minister for the Ecological Transition told the media from the Glasgow climate summit.

Waiting for Brussels to present in the near future the rules of the so-called “taxonomy” that must define which investments enjoy more friendly financing, Paris and Berlin have made a move.
A few days ago, a draft of the new green taxonomy was published that included both technologies, nuclear and gas, in order to access this better financing.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced by surprise two days ago that France will resume the construction of nuclear power plants, an energy condemned in Germany, which is committed to a fossil fuel such as gas as a transition energy and maintains, for now, 2038 as the date to get rid of coal in electricity generation.

The German response to this announcement has arrived in the corridors of the Glasgow climate summit, where Berlin has circulated a statement expressing its concern that atomic energy may be included in the so-called “taxonomy” being prepared by the European Commission and whose decision is presumed imminent.

According to Ribera, both should be left out of the list of sustainable investments, so that new infrastructures are not financed with community funds, gas because it is a fossil fuel and atomic energy because of the associated risks for the environment.

“This does not mean that whoever wants to, according to their own sovereign decisions (…) cannot invest in gas or nuclear. It does mean that from the point of view of the congruence of the system it would be a distortion to include these two technologies in that list of green technology”, he concluded.

Source: The Energy Newspaper