The European Union’s court has ruled that burning wood for energy and making plastics from organic materials are green activities under EU law, writes Politico.
The European Commission’s victory concludes a legal battle brought in 2022 by ClientEarth, a non-governmental organization that argued Brussels was violating its own laws by including the burning of woody biomass for energy and the use of wood to make plastics in the EU’s taxonomy as sustainable.
The EU’s Green Taxonomy, announced in 2020, identifies industries and activities that are considered “green.” It was designed to help investors identify investments that align with the bloc’s environmental goals. ClientEarth argued that the EC had failed to ensure that the use of biomass to produce biodegradable plastics did not undermine the transition to a circular economy. The court rejected all of the organization’s arguments and dismissed the appeal.
ClientEarth said the EC was wrong to treat all wood raw materials in the same way, rather than following the experts’ advice to distinguish between different categories. The court concluded that the EC had justified its decision not to follow the recommendations, and
ClientEarth could not prove that its reasons were wrong.
The EU court also dismissed another case brought by the Austrian government in 2022 over the Green Taxonomy. In it, Austria challenged the EC’s decision to consider nuclear energy and fossil gas energy as “green”. The court ruled that nuclear energy, and in some cases also fossil gas energy, should be considered environmentally sustainable. The ruling said the EC was entitled to consider that greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power generation were close to zero and that there were currently no technologically and economically viable alternatives available for widespread use.
The court also added that it agreed that, under certain circumstances, the nuclear and fossil gas sectors could significantly mitigate climate change.
ClientEarth and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice have lodged a formal complaint with the EU Ombudsman about the undemocratic and opaque way in which the EC worked on the proposal.
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