BRUSSELS —
Brussels and NGOs expressed
concerns Tuesday about several EU countries, including Germany, reverting to
using coal for power generation as the fall-out from Russia’s war in Ukraine
hits energy supplies.
اضافة اعلان
“We have to make sure that we use this crisis to
move forward and not to have a backsliding on the dirty fossil fuels,” European
Commission chief
Ursula von der Leyen told several European media in an
interview.
“It’s a fine line and it is not determined whether
we are going to take the right turn,” she added.
The shift — a reaction to power-hungry Europe being
increasingly starved of Russian gas and oil — seriously undermines the EU’s
vaunted ambition to become climate neutral by 2050.
That goal is one of the cornerstones of von der
Leyen’s policies at the helm of the EU executive.
Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands have in the
past couple of days said they will ease restrictions on power stations fired by
fossil fuel.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Tuesday
described Russian energy giant Gazprom’s slashing of gas supplies to Europe as
an “attack on us” by Moscow.
While Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and the
region’s biggest energy consumer, said it still plans to exit coal in 2030,
environmental groups are skeptical.
Turning back to coal “is a bad choice” with
structural consequences, said Neil Makaroff, of Climate Action Network, an
umbrella organization for such groups.
“Countries are continuing to back fossil energy
rather than investing enough in renewables,” he said.
“The risk is substituting one dependency for
another: importing Colombian or Australian coal, US or Qatari liquefied natural
gas, to replace Russian hydrocarbons.”
Another group, Carbon Market Watch, agreed that the
move to coal was “worrying” and expressed hope it would “be as temporary as
possible”.
The EU, as part of sanctions imposed on Russia for
its
invasion of Ukraine, is phasing in a ban on Russian coal and oil.
Moscow, in turn, has taken to turning down gas
supplies to EU countries.
Although it says the diminished supplies are because
of technical or maintenance reasons, European capitals believe Russia is trying
to hurt the EU for its backing of Ukraine, in particular its candidacy bid to
one day join the bloc.
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