On December 5, 2019 the EU’s Finnish presidency of the EU Council agreed with the EU Parliament on a taxonomy defining which economic activities can be considered ‘green’, to direct billion euro EU budgets towards tackling CO2 emissions. The agreement will need to be confirmed by EU Member States and the EU Parliament is seen by the EU Commission vice-president for finance, Valdis Dombrovskis as “A major success ahead of COP25 and for our Sustainable Finance Strategy,” Taxanomy was the most important and urgent action” of the Action Plan of Sustainable Finance put forward in March 2018.

The taxonomy plays a crucial role in Europe’s ‘Green Deal’, as it will help to attract billions of euros needed for the sustainable transition and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. It is expected to be applied by promotional banks, including the European Investment Bank, Germany’s KfW and the European Central Bank. The EU Parliament has set its hearing on the Green Deal on the day of its publication December 11, 2019 as most of the Green Deal content has already been revealed.

Hydrogen was also prominent on December 10, 2019 at the COP25 in Madrid where Chile took a leading role in presenting hydrogen as a way forward to bridge the gap between “pre-mitters” and “post-mitters” by pointing to potential exports of green hydrogen form Latin America to the rest of the world…

Latest news on H2 investments came from the port of Rotterdam, Deltalinqs, representing the Port’s business community will cooperate with  waste management AVR, to produce methanol with CO2 and Tronox  a paint pigment (titanoxide) supplier to build a small 5MW  hydrogen production facility that will also sell the oxygen and heat.

Photo: SUEZ’ garbage truck running on hydrogen in Amsterdam