EU Taxonomy: Greenwashing Impacts Global Climate Crisis
In March, 2021, when the deadline to determine which economic activities could be deemed “green” approached, the leaders of the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary wrote a joint letter to the European Commission pressing for the inclusion of nuclear power in the EU’s new taxonomy, a criteria-based transparency tool to help financial investors determine which economic activities are environmentally sustainable.
The intervention by the Nuclear Seven was covered widely, but left unscrutinised by the news media, until a team of fact checkers examined the contents. They determined that 20 of the 25 factual claims in the letter were either false or misleading. This includes assertions that nuclear power is “environmentally friendly”, that it is “essential to the transition towards clean energy sources”, that it is a “promising source of hydrogen”, and that it is “affordable”.
The contents of the letter fall far below any reasonable standard for such an official communication and should have provoked more comment in the media.
The full analysis, written by Christiana Mauro, Kacper Szulecki, Lucie Čejková and Thomas Brent, can be downloaded below.
