A group of climate activists has filed a lawsuit against the European Commission in an attempt to overturn a set of rules that class natural gas and nuclear energy as climate-friendly investments.
In an April 18 press release, Greenpeace said that eight of its member organizations had co-filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice over the inclusion of natural gas and nuclear energy in a sustainable investments taxonomy passed last year.
The taxonomy lists a number of investments that can be labelled and marketed as sustainable in Europe, with an overall aim to guide investors towards projects that support the European Union’s (EU) climate targets.
In September 2022, the group of Greenpeace organizations asked the Commission to review its decision to include natural gas and nuclear energy in the taxonomy, but the Commission rejected the request in February this year.
Greenpeace is arguing that the rules will allow “fossil gas and nuclear power plants to receive money that otherwise would have gone to renewables.”
An additional lawsuit, co-filed on Tuesday by Client Earth, WWF, Transport & Environment, and Friends of the Earth Germany, is also seeking to overturn the rules on natural gas.
Furthermore, the Austrian government has taken legal action against the Commission to remove natural gas and nuclear energy from the taxonomy.
The Commission has defended its decision, stating that gas and nuclear plants must meet “strict conditions” to win the EU green label, including an emissions limit for gas plants. In defense of the inclusion, Poland and Bulgaria have added that gas investments are needed to help them phase out the more CO2 intensive coal plants.