MEPs of the European Parliament’s Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) discussed, on Thursday 6 July, the new taxonomy criteria with Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial Services.
On Tuesday 27 June, a new delegated act, aimed at establishing new criteria, was formally adopted by the European Commission and must now be examined by the European Parliament and the EU Council (see EUROPE B1320014). In particular, it includes new transport and manufacturing activities. The taxonomy is thus complete, covering all six climate and environmental objectives defined by the European Commission. But its criteria can be revised, deleted or added to reflect the latest technological developments.
MEPs welcomed the addition of these new criteria. “The taxonomy now covers 90% of total CO2 emissions, which means we’re almost there”, said a delighted Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French).
But these new criteria have also been criticised. Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP, Finnish) regretted that “ Taxonomy IV is not forward-looking enough”. “This has clearly been shown, for example, in water transportation and in aviation sectors where we actually should have set the bar higher on the already existing and upcoming technologies”, explained Ms Pietikäinen.
“We have gone further and I hope that has been recognised, but we have a lot of work to do in these areas”, acknowledged Ms McGuinness.
For his part, Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Dutch) warned of the risks of greenwashing, particularly with regard to transition activities. “Transitional activities are defined in the law as a transition, meaning that over time, we need to check whether they are still fit for purpose”, he pointed out. He is concerned that the notion of “making a substantial contribution to one of the environmental objectives” will be forgotten. “I have the feeling that more and more the taxonomy is changing into a ‘if you do green, you will be called green taxonomy’”, he warned.
Ms McGuinness welcomed the criticism, assuring that the Commission would pay attention to this and that it would update the text in three years’ time, as planned.
To read the delegated acts: https://aeur.eu/f/7yj and https://aeur.eu/f/7yk (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)