"EU hit with lawsuit over green labelling of aviation and shipping investments"

Environmental campaigners take the EU to court over the inclusion of fossil fuel-powered planes and ships in green taxonomy

Environmental campaigners have filed a lawsuit against the European Union over its inclusion of polluting planes and ships powered by fossil fuels in the bloc’s green investment rulebook.

The European Commission should review “flawed” sustainable finance criteria for the aviation and shipping sectors in the EU Taxonomy, a guide designed to funnel private investment towards net zero-aligned activities, according to a coalition of NGOs behind a legal challenge lodged at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on Tuesday.

The green groups claim the EU acted unlawfully in late 2023 when it introduced “loose” rules allowing a green label to be put on fossil fuel-powered planes and ships if they meet “weak” efficiency standards.

“The aviation and shipping criteria send completely the wrong signal to investors – directing investments to planes and ships that will pollute the climate for decades to come,” said David Kay, legal director at Opportunity Green, which filed the complaint alongside CLAW-Initiative for Climate Justice, Dryade and Dutch NGO Fossielvrij. [...]

“Marginal” emissions savings

In its rulebook, the EU Commission classed aviation and shipping as “transitional” activities because, it said, aircraft and ships with zero CO2 emissions are not yet technologically and economically feasible. The Commission introduced screening criteria to allow the inclusion of existing technologies when they comply with a series of efficiency standards which, the legislative body said, would help the world reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

But the NGOs argue that those thresholds are too broad and fail that scientific test. For example, giant cruise liners running on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and more than 7,000 new Airbus aircraft powered almost exclusively by fossil fuels – equivalent to 90% of the firm’s future orders – qualify as sustainable under the EU classification, analysis by the NGO Transport and Environment shows. [...]