Nucleareurope highlights importance of Sustainable Finance Taxonomy

On 10 October 2023, nucleareurope Communications & Advocacy Director Jessica Johnson was invited to participate in a high-level panel dedicated to nuclear and sustainable finance during the IAEA’s 2nd International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power.

During her intervention, she noted that the goal of the taxonomy was to identify the technologies that can be considered as sustainable and help the EU achieve its 2050 decarbonisation targets. It furthermore aims to help direct investment towards these technologies. The main reasons why nucleareurope pushed for the inclusion of nuclear can be summarised as follows:

• EU policy must remain technology neutral, and in this respect the science is clear: nuclear is both sustainable and low-carbon.
• Access to finance: including nuclear on the list sends positive signals towards the investors.
• Enabling nuclear to have access to other EU funds which are increasingly being linked to taxonomy eligibility.

In terms of next steps, Jessica noted that nucleareurope is now working towards getting the current exclusions of nuclear removed from various EU funds, such as the Just Transition Mechanism.  This will help ensure a level playing field for European technologies.