Teresa Ribera asks to reconsider the green labeling of gas and nuclear energy

The Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has defended the need to rethink the proposal of the European Commission (EC) for a green taxonomy, which provides that investments in nuclear energy and natural gas can be classified as sustainable.

As the minister wrote in a column published by the German newspaper “Tagesspiegel”, the function of the taxonomy is to “serve as a guide” for states, companies and financial institutions when it comes to identifying sustainable practices and formulating financing and investment strategies.

Although each member country of the European Union (EU) is “free to determine its energy sources”, it is important to “create a common language” that contributes to making the community economies “climate neutral as soon as possible”.

In this sense, argues the minister, the EC proposal “equates” gas and nuclear energy with renewable sources and by doing so “sends a confusing signal to financial markets and carries the great risk of being rejected even by investors” .

In addition, including harmful energy sources with long amortization periods in the green taxonomy would contribute to “diverting resources from renewable technologies”, concludes Ribera.

Spain, Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg this month expressed their rejection of the Commission’s draft, which will present its final version on Wednesday after the positions of the member countries.

Germany is against the green labeling of nuclear energy, but the coalition government made up of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals insists that natural gas is necessary as a “bridge technology” for the energy transition.

In an interview with the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” media network, German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke assured on Monday that “the last word has not yet been said” regarding the classification of nuclear energy.

“We are in a much more intense debate than many expected,” he said, recalling that several countries have expressed their intention to try to stop the proposal through judicial channels.

With regard to natural gas, he argued that Germany’s position is “balanced” since this source is needed temporarily “until we get our entire energy supply from the sun and the wind.”

‘Bridge technologies are necessary for energy security, but this does not mean that they are sustainable. The Commission sees it differently and thereby weakens the taxonomy, our most effective means against greenwashing,” concluded the German minister.

Source: EFE Green