EU Commission publishes climate change mitigation taxonomy

An excerpt from our European Weekly Bulletin, part of our Energy Spectrum Europe package.

On Wednesday 2 February, the EU Commission presented its Taxonomy Complementary Climate Delegated Act on climate change mitigation and adaptation covering certain gas and nuclear activities. The commission states that it aims to prevent greenwashing and guide private investment to activities that are needed to achieve climate neutrality through the taxonomy, but it will not be used to determine whether a certain technology will or will not be part of Member State energy mixes.

To support the release of the taxonomy, the EU Commission published a Questions and Answers on the same day to explain its reasoning for the inclusion of gas and nuclear activities as being in line with the EU’s climate and environmental objectives.

Under the commission’s scenario modelling in its ‘Fit for 55’ package it expects natural gas will continue to play an important role in terms of consumption and generation as a transitional fuel until 2030, after which it is expected to decline to 2050. In the commission’s modelling for Paris-aligned pathways, natural gas is projected to represent 22% of gross inland energy consumption in 2030, and 9% in 2050 – with this needing to be abated. The taxonomy will be formally adopted by the EU Commission when all the language versions are available.

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Commercial and market outlook Low carbon generation
James Shaw

James Shaw

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