BRUSSELS — The European Commission has sparked a dispute between rival environmental camps by announcing it will sacrifice nature protection laws to speed up the rollout of clean electricity networks.
Faster permitting is good news for clean energy advocates, who argue a much bigger grid is essential to build more renewables and slash planet-warming emissions. Lengthy permitting procedures, they say, often add five years or more to development.
But a rival green camp warns slashing environmental permitting rules will endanger Europe’s nature and wildlife, which is already critically under threat.
The changes proposed “are worse than anyone expected, with the European Commission continuing on its path of self-destruction, with indubitable impact on the European Union’s nature, the health of its ecosystems and the functionality of its ecosystem services,” Ioannis Agapakis, a lawyer with environmental legal charity ClientEarth, said in a statement.
