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European parliamentarians vote nuclear and gas as ”green” – another step in the sinister lobbying process of the desperate nuclear industry.

Réseau sortir du nucléaire. 7 July 22, It is a dark day for the environment and the climate. Meeting in plenary in Strasbourg, European parliamentarians validated by 328 votes against 278 the European Commission's proposal to include nuclear and gas in the green taxonomy. We strongly denounce the maneuvering lobbies and the major deleterious role played by France.

This vote marks the culmination of a sinister soap opera marked by unprecedented pressure from lobbies and pro-nuclear states. Bankrupt and ready for any maneuver to benefit from new money, the nuclear industry had laid siege to the European Commission and obtained the order of a report shamelessly minimizing the harmful effects caused by the atom. 

Emmanuel Macron himself was famous for his duplicity, posing as a climate champion while pleading for the inclusion of fossil gas and allying himself with leaders who care little for human rights, such as Viktor Orban, provided that they support the atom. A few days before the vote, the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, had again signed a pro-nuclear platform with ministers from other Member States far removed from ecological issues.

The European Parliament, which had initially come out against the inclusion of nuclear power and gas in this text, had the possibility of contesting the delegated act published at the beginning of 2022 by the European Commission, which classified these polluting energies among the technologies "of transition ". But while the "Environment" and "Economy and Finance" committees had refused this classification, the parliamentarians meeting in plenary seem to have finally yielded to the sirens of the lobbies. The elected French Macronists of “Renew” bear an overwhelming responsibility for this catastrophic decision.

To qualify nuclear and fossil gas as “transitional” energies is to make words lose all meaning and totally empty of its meaning a tool initially intended to fight against greenwashing. How can gas, a greenhouse gas emitter, fit into this category? Not to mention nuclear, which is dangerous, polluting even in regular operation, producing unmanageable waste, and too slow and too expensive to be a relevant tool in the face of the climate emergency! Any euro spent on the pursuit of nuclear power will be a wasted resource at the expense of the real solutions to climate change: sobriety, efficiency and renewable energies.

July 7, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, EUROPE, politics international