On Wednesday 1 December, thirteen former members of the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance warned of the risk of including fossil gas in the EU’s taxonomy in an open letter published by Politico.
Set up by the European Commission in June 2018, the role of this expert group was to assist the institution in developing the EU taxonomy – a classification system intended to guide investors in determining which economic activities could be considered ‘sustainable’ – by setting out recommendations (see EUROPE 12442/14).
In particular, they recommended that a threshold of 100 g CO2 equivalent per kWh be set for electricity generation activities to be covered by the taxonomy. This would exclude electricity generated from fossil gas since the carbon intensity of this type of activity is more than double the 100 g CO2/kWh threshold.
While the European Commission decided to keep this threshold in the first delegated act on taxonomy (see EUROPE 12703/2), it may decide to include fossil gas in the taxonomy through another delegated act that is expected in the coming weeks (see EUROPE 12843/14).
Faced with this possibility, the thirteen signatories have emphasised that the taxonomy must remain based on a scientific approach so that it does not become a tool for greenwashing.
They argue that relaxing the initial threshold would damage the “scientific credibility” of the taxonomy and weaken the EU’s leadership on climate.
See the letter: https://politi.co/3xFeWco (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)