Lawmakers criticise green taxonomy investment rules for aviation, maritime
Green MEPs have asked the European Commission to revise the EU’s criteria for sustainable investments, saying rules pertaining to the aviation and maritime sectors are not in line with the EU’s environmental objectives.
In a letter sent to the European Commission earlier this month, the parliamentarians criticised the criteria attached to the taxonomy regulation, an EU law designed to guide investment towards environmentally sustainable sectors.
The EU taxonomy provides public and private investors with a list of approved green investment areas, in a bid to boost financing for green projects and protect investors from greenwashing.
The European Commission has developed technical screening criteria for numerous sectors, which will be used to assess their sustainability.
The letter was signed by seven lawmakers from the Green faction in the European Parliament – Bas Eickhout, Ciarán Cuffe, Ernest Urtasun, Ville Niinistö, Martin Häusling, Marie Toussaint, and Michael Bloss.
The signatories want to see the draft criteria, which were shared in April with the European Parliament, brought “in line with the spirit and letter” of the EU’s sustainable taxonomy regulation.
Aviation
Under the EU taxonomy, aircraft manufacturers can win a green label for producing aircraft with zero tailpipe emissions, or aircraft with lower CO2 emissions than International Civil Aviation Organisation limits for new planes.
But classifying activities such as buying new combustion engine planes or using low-levels of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as ‘substantially contributing to climate mitigation’ is inconsistent with the EU’s green targets, the letter states.
“The minimum SAF use in the criteria do not put the aviation sector on a credible pathway to limit temperature increase to 1.5 °C, but instead only require marginal emission intensity improvements which the industry has already committed to,” the MEPs write.
For long-haul flights, the MEPs argue that only aircraft with engines 100% compatible with SAF should be eligible for green investment.
“Given the long lifespan of aircrafts, the current draft criteria would allow aircrafts to operate with fossil fuels for decades to come, thereby infringing on the requirement to prevent a lock-in of carbon-intensive assets.”
The ability to resell used aircraft to other airlines was also picked up by lawmakers, who said the practice would “completely undermine the goal of achieving substantial emission reductions”.
“Only when inefficient aircrafts are taken out of business” should purchasing new aircrafts be taxonomy eligible, it is argued.
MEPs want to see the criteria “removed or revised” before the delegated acts are finalised.
The aviation sector has argued that a broad taxonomy will provide a stable investment environment, helping to ensure the necessary ramp up in SAF provision and emerging clean technology.
Maritime
The lawmakers also voiced their opposition to the draft rules for water transport, saying it would weaken existing maritime criteria.
This would set a “worrying precedent” the MEPs argue, as the stringency of the criteria should “be revised upwards, not downwards” to meet the EU’s climate goals.
If passed, the criteria would “prolong incentives for investments in ships with combustion engines for years to come, thereby undermining the development and deployment of low-carbon alternatives,” the seven lawmakers wrote.
The thresholds included in the taxonomy, it is said, “fail to consider the gap between ship design standards and real-world performance”.
Further demands
Other areas are also in need of adjustments, according to the signatories of the letter.
Rules on the circular economy should be revised to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions from plastics coming from bio-waste feedstock are treated differently to the emissions from plastics coming from fossil fuels, the MEPs argued. Those rules are contained in a so-called “delegated act” or implementing legislation.
The criteria on construction, renovation, and demolishing of buildings should be revised to boost recycling and better incentivise the reuse of materials, while the practice of “biodiversity offsetting” should be excluded from the taxonomy.
“Implementing biodiversity offsetting is problematic due to the difficulties and potential failures to quantify and valuate biodiversity,” the MEPs warn.
The Greens end the letter by reminding the Commission of the legal challenges brought by the controversial decision to include fossil gas and nuclear power in the taxonomy.
“These technical screening criteria are now subject to legal challenges, creating uncertainty for financial market participants and jeopardising the EU’s global leadership in sustainable finance. The EU cannot afford any further compromising of the environmental integrity of the Taxonomy,” the letter states.
The letter was addressed to EU green deal chief Frans Timmermans, Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean, Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius, and Commissioner for Financial Services Mairead McGuinness.
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