Officials of the European Union have said a deepening spat over the role of nuclear energy in the green transition has stalled the adoption of conclusions on climate diplomacy that had been planned for Monday by member countries in what is the latest development in a dispute between countries such as France and others who want more EU policies to promote nuclear energy’s contribution to cutting CO2 emissions, and those like Germany and Spain who warn this risks distracting from efforts to massively expand renewable energy.
Focused on hydrogen produced from nuclear or renewable energy, the debate has already delayed negotiations on new EU renewable energy targets and threatened a multi-billion-euro hydrogen pipeline and there are fears it could spill into other green energy policies, potentially delaying laws needed to meet EU climate targets, some EU officials said.
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“There are outstanding obstacles, but they will be resolved,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was quoted as saying about the climate conclusions on Monday, albeit he failed to disclose what the obstacles were.
Borrell, after a meeting of EU countries’ foreign ministers, who had planned to approve the conclusions, said that he expected countries to give written approval to a final text of the conclusions that would set out the EU’s diplomatic priorities ahead this year’s U.N. climate summit within days.
Plans for the EU to rally support for a global pledge to phase out fossil fuels ahead of the November U.N. climate summit is part of the the majority of the text that had been approved, EU officials told reporters.
But countries are struggling to agree on whether the text should explicitly promote low-carbon hydrogen – meaning hydrogen produced from nuclear electricity – or focus on hydrogen produced from renewable energy, they said.
“On the question of hydrogen … there are different positions around the table,” an official told reporters, adding that officials were working to try to find a compromise quickly.
“EU energy diplomacy will promote the increasing uptake and system integration of renewable energy, hydrogen and its derivatives,” a draft of the conclusions said, adding that EU diplomacy would also promote “safe and sustainable low-carbon technologies.”
Story was adapted from Reuters.
