Andreas Hoepner

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Andreas Hoepner is Professor of Operational Risk, Banking & Finance at University College Dublin. He is also, among others, Co-Inventor of the European Union's Paris-Aligned Benchmarks, a SVLabs Lead and a Head at the Sustainable Finance Platform of the European Commission.

Andreas Hoepner

Jan 07 2022

Giant Greenwash: can 1.4 billion tons of fossil gas CO2e emissions really be declared "green by law"?

Illuminem Voices

Environmental Sustainability · ESG

Gas fired power plants can emit a "budget" 11 tons of CO2e per kilowatt (kW) of capacity over 20 years until they have to use carbon capture technologies or lose the "green by law" label. If a gas fired power-plant has 3 gigawatt (GW) capacity, that is 33,000,000 tons of CO2e. If this sounds like a large number, consider that there are "166 coal-fired power plants operating in .. EU countries, with a total capacity of 112 GW". If they all were replaced with gas-fired power stations, President Von der Leyen's proposal would declare 1,416,800,000 tons of CO2e as "green by law".