EU green finance advisers walk out in protest

LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – A group of five non-profit civil society advisers helping the European Commission that drew up a list of climate-friendly activities have resigned, saying the EU executive “has politically interfered” in his work.

As part of the Sustainable Finance Platform, the advisers were asked to help develop the rules that would define what the EU labeled as green investment, but said their recommendations had been ignored on issues such as gas and nuclear power plants.

The European Consumer Organization (BEUC), Birdlife Europe and Central Asia, Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS), Transport & Environment and WWF’s European Policy Office are resigning from the group.

“European governments and lobbies have greatly undermined the credibility of the EU taxonomy and the Commission has bowed to them,” Sebastien Godinot, senior economist at WWF’s European Policy Office, said in a communicated

“We no longer believe that this Commission will allow the Platform to operate independently and with integrity, so we can no longer be part of this process.”

In response, a spokesperson for the European Commission said: “The European Commission recognizes the work of the Platform on Sustainable Finance and its members, in supporting the Commission to develop the EU Sustainable Finance Framework and, in particular , the EU Taxonomy”.

“We note that some members of the Platform have decided to resign from their positions.”

The advisory platform had recommended that gas investments not be labeled with the green label unless they emitted less than 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. Today’s best gas plants far exceed this emissions limit.

The Commission followed this recommendation in its original proposal, but later amended it to include gas plants that emit less than 270 g CO2e/kWh, or have annual emissions of less than 550 kg CO2e/kW over 20 years , in the final EU rules. Read more

The final proposal emerged after a months-long debate and intense lobbying by companies and member states urging Brussels to label gas and nuclear as green. Brussels said it had added “strict conditions” to the final rules to ensure gas plants labeled as green investments meet climate targets.

But the resigning NGOs said that by not following the advisers’ original scientific advice, Brussels had ignored an EU law which specifies that taxonomy should follow “conclusive scientific evidence”.

The move comes as the EU looks to move forward with the next stage of the taxonomy, during which it will seek to debate issues such as how to define sustainability in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Kim Coghill

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