The European Union can continue to count nuclear power as environmentally sustainable after the EU’s General Court rejected a challenge by Austria, siding with the European Commission’s decision to classify nuclear as a climate-friendly investment.
The court on 10 September found against a complaint from Austria, which sought to overturn the decision to include nuclear energy and fossil gas in the sustainable finance taxonomy, a list of investments that can be marketed and labelled as sustainable.
The Luxembourg-based General Court, one of the two courts that make up the Court of Justice of the European Union, said in its judgment the commission “was entitled to take the view that nuclear energy generation has near to zero greenhouse gas emissions and that there are currently no technologically and economically feasible low-carbon alternatives at a sufficient scale”.