EU Commission launches public consultation on first sets of screening criteria under sustainability taxonomy, triggering ‘environmental integrity’ warnings
"EC taxonomy consultation triggers ‘environmental integrity’ warnings", 20 Nov 2020
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the first two sets of detailed screening criteria under the EU sustainability taxonomy regulation, triggering warnings that they are at risk of deviating from scientific evidence.
Set out in a draft delegated act, the criteria in question are for determining which economic activities can be said to substantially contribute to climate change mitigation or adaptation.
The criteria generally follow the recommendations from the technical expert group (TEG) that advised the Commission on its sustainable finance action plan, but deviate from them in some respects.
Tsvetelina Kuzmanova, policy advisor at environment think tank E3G, said the delegated act had strengthened some of the thresholds compared with the TEG report, but that “we are concerned about the environmental integrity of the thresholds that have been weakened”...
The consultation is open for four weeks. The Commission will consider the feedback received before finalising the adoption of the delegated act, which will then be subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council...
The delegated act and associated information can be found here.