The environmental protection organizations GLOBAL 2000 and ÖKOBÜRO are now warning of massive setbacks in environmental and climate protection if demands like those in today’s world prevail leaked document from the WKO energy master plan are included. The document is available in GLOBAL 2000.
“With this retro document, the Chamber of Commerce shows a regressive mentality that we have not seen in Austria for decades. Excluding citizens and environmental organizations from the approval process shows the lack of understanding of democracy among parts of the Chamber of Commerce. We call on Harald Mahrer as President of the WKO to send this so-called “Energy Master Plan” back to the start and to finally find a future-oriented approach to the energy transition, environmental and climate protection. Many companies have long been making their contribution to the energy transition and climate protection, and here the Chamber of Commerce is also ignoring the many constructive forces in companies,” says Johannes Wahlmüller.
Viktoria Ritter, environmental lawyer at ÖKOBÜRO, underlines the criticism of the WKO’s leaked energy master plan: “Recognized environmental protection organizations must be involved in the approval process for environmentally relevant projects, they must also have the right to complain – anything else violates international and European law. The European Commission is already conducting infringement proceedings against the Republic due to the inadequate participation rights of environmental protection organizations, which, if not implemented, could result in a lawsuit before the ECJ. A restriction such as that proposed by the WKO would further increase the breach of contract. The participation of environmental protection organizations in the process serves to ensure environmental protection standards and supports public acceptance of energy projects.”
The exclusion of the suspensive effect of complaints against approval notices means that projects can be built during an appeal procedure before the court. This contradicts the European law principle of effective legal protection: damage is caused to the environment that is difficult to reverse afterwards. The removal of the right to appeal to the Administrative Court leads to more legal uncertainty: This prevents fundamental legal questions from being clarified by the Court for future cases and these have to be reopened in the next proceedings.
WKO remains trapped in the fossil age
GLOBAL 2000 also sees a lot of retrogression in this WKO document. The WKO would like to ensure that numerous tax breaks are introduced, including a tax reduction on fossil natural gas. This would make environmentally harmful energy cheaper and thus hinder the energy transition.
At the same time, people are sticking to pseudo solutions and want to use e-fuels in road traffic, even though these fuels simply do not exist and, as the most inefficient technology for moving around in a vehicle, cannot make a significant contribution to mobility in the future.
The unwillingness to contribute to solving the problem yourself and instead to burden the general public with the costs of energy transition and transformation is clearly shown in the WKO document. For example, they want “interim financing” from the public sector for the CCS infrastructure (capture of CO2). That would create a billion-dollar hole in public finances and does not correspond to the polluter pays principle, according to which those who cause the problem also contribute to the solution.
“The Chamber of Commerce wants taxpayers to finance every contribution to climate protection and does not even shy away from proposing the expansion of environmentally harmful subsidies, even though the recently presented National Energy and Climate Plan provides for exactly the opposite. In doing so, it opposes the achievement of climate and energy goals in Austria and against the many companies that are already making an important contribution to the energy transition, advancing innovations and taking their responsibility seriously. GLOBAL 2000 calls on the Chamber of Commerce to finally think towards the future and to develop an energy master plan that can actually make a contribution to achieving Austria’s climate goals,” concluded Johannes Wahlmüller.
Link to energy master plan: https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/Energiemasterplan WKO.pdf