Robots marched on in 2021, with record orders by North American firms

By Timothy Aeppel -


(Reuters) - More robots joined the U.S. workforce last year than ever before, taking on jobs from plucking bottles and cans off conveyor belts at trash recycling plants to putting small consumer goods into cardboard boxes at e-commerce warehouses.

It looks like still more robots will come aboard in 2022.

Companies across North America laid out more than $2 billion for almost 40,000 robots in 2021 to help them contend with record demand and a pandemic-fueled labor shortage. Robots went to work in a growing number of industries, expanding well beyond their historic surge in the automotive sector.

"With human labor, what they produce depends on if they're hungry or are they tired or have they had their coffee," said Brian Tu, chief revenue officer for DCL Logistics in Fremont, California, which started installing robots on e-commerce fulfillment lines during the pandemic. Robots are dependably fast and do not take breaks.


© Reuters/NATHAN FRANDINOFILE PHOTO: A robotic arm system named Ada lifts Genovese Basil plants for its roots to be inspected at the Iron Ox greenhouse in Gilroy, California

Factories and other industrial users ordered 39,708 robots in 2021, 28% more than in 2020, according to data compiled by the industry group the Association for Advancing Automation, also known as A3. The previous annual record for robot orders was set in 2017 - when North American companies ordered 34,904 robots valued at $1.9 billion.

As recently as 2016, more than twice as many robots were sold to auto makers as to all other industry sectors combined. But in 2020, other businesses eclipsed automakers as buyers of the advanced machines, and the share of robots going to non-auto companies grew further in 2021.

Some of the fastest growth in robot orders is in the metals and food and consumer goods industries, according to A3.

E-commerce is another fast growth sector. At DCL, which has five U.S. fulfillment centers and will soon open a sixth, the lines that have gotten robots can operate with fewer people - yet produce 200% more, according to Tu.

"We still have employees working around the robots," he added, "but we can reduce labor by roughly half."


© Reuters/STEVE MARCUSFILE PHOTO: CES 2022 in Las Vegas

BRING ON THE 'COBOTS'

The A3 data mostly tracks orders for traditional industrial robots - large systems that typically replace an entire section of an assembly line with moving arms. But a growing share of robots are a new breed of "cobots," designed to work alongside humans on assembly lines.

"The number one driver for automation is the labor shortage in manufacturing," said Joe Campbell, a senior manager for applications development at Universal Robots, a unit of Massachusetts-based Teradyne Inc, which specializes in cobots. And the pandemic is not the only factor driving the change. Universal estimates 2,000 Baby Boomers are retiring daily in manufacturing, robbing factory floors of veteran expertise.


© Reuters/STEVE MARCUSFILE PHOTO: CES 2022 in Las Vegas

Campbell said cobots are making inroads into many industries that long resisted automation. In construction, for instance, the company has sold robot arms to a firm that uses them to install drywall in large building projects: a notoriously labor-intensive process.


© Reuters/REBECCA COOKFILE PHOTO: An inventory of manufacturing robots, waiting to be shipped to customers, are seen in a FANUC American facility

Auto plants are also finding new uses for cobots. Stellantis N.V., the Dutch automaker, is now using Universal's cobots in the final assembly area of its factory in Turin, Italy, to help produce the new Fiat 500 electric vehicle. The arms are attached to a framework that moves over the car, where they locate and fasten nuts, said Campbell.

While auto plants have used robots for decades to do jobs like weld metal, he said, it is "very new" for cobots to do final assembly jobs.

Last week, Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk said his engineers would launch a humanoid robot called Optimus in its factories next year. In the short term, Musk said these robots might carry items around a factory and could eventually address labor shortages.

As of December, U.S. employers had 10.9 million vacant positions, nominally below the record 11.1 million from earlier in 2021. There are now an unprecedented 1.7 open jobs for every unemployed worker, and at least one policymaker at the Federal Reserve - St. Louis Fed President James Bullard - sees the U.S. unemployment rate dropping below 3% this year for the first time since the 1950s.

"Never say never," said Universal Robots' Campbell, "but I don't see anything to slow us down."

(Reporting by Timothy Aeppel; Editing by Dan Burns and David Gregorio)

The life-or-death implications of curbing air pollution from power plants

By Maxine Joselow

The EPA seeks to prevent thousands of premature deaths from air pollution


The Dave Johnston coal-fired power plant in Glenrock, Wyo. (J. David Ake/AP)

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday affirmed its authority to regulate emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from the power sector.

It's easy to frame Monday's move as an abstract regulatory decision by Washington bureaucrats. But it certainly has life-or-death implications for people who live near the billowing smokestacks of power plants.

That's because the proposal paves the way for stricter regulations limiting mercury, a potent neurotoxin that can harm babies' brain development, as well as fine particulate matter, which causes up to 11,000 premature deaths each year, according to a federal analysis completed during the Obama administration.

“A lot of nasty stuff comes out of power plants and causes adverse health consequences,” Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association, told The Climate 202. “And there are very clear and significant benefits from reducing that toxic air pollution.”

Costs and benefits

The EPA issued a proposed legal finding that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury and other harmful air pollutants from the power sector under the Clean Air Act, as my colleague Dino Grandoni reported.

The proposal leaves the current mercury standards for power plants, which were adopted under Barack Obama, unchanged. But it lays the groundwork for the EPA to issue stricter mercury standards in the future by relying on higher estimates of the public health benefits of reducing air pollution.

To understand why, it's first necessary to understand the messy history of mercury rules spanning both Democratic and Republican administrations:

In 2012, the Obama administration finalized the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which required coal-fired power plants to install expensive “scrubber" technology that cleans the gases passing through their smokestacks.

In the analysis underpinning the rule, Obama officials found that it would cost the industry $9.6 billion a year to comply. They justified those costs by estimating that the rule would yield $86 billion in public health benefits over five years by preventing up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 nonfatal heart attacks and 2,600 hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

But in 2018, under Donald Trump, the EPA determined that it was not “appropriate and necessary” to curb mercury pollution from power plants because the costs of doing so outweighed the benefits.

In particular, the Trump administration accused Obama officials of inflating the benefits of mercury standards by including the incidental benefits of limiting fine particulate matter, or tiny particles that can infiltrate the lungs.

The proposal by the Biden administration affirms the soundness of the Obama-era analysis, including its reliance on the co-benefits.

Reported delay over Build Back Better

Of course, it's Washington, so there were apparently some politics involved here. Biden administration officials delayed the rollout of the proposal amid tense negotiations in Congress over Democrats' Build Back Better legislation, the New York Times's Coral Davenport reports.

Administration officials feared that the proposal would "antagonize industry and lawmakers” just as Biden was seeking crucial support for the climate and social spending plan, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Times.

After negotiations over Build Back Better between the White House and holdout Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) collapsed in December, administration officials allowed the EPA to move forward with the proposal while Congress tries to resurrect the spending bill.

What happens next

The EPA plans to solicit public comments on the proposal for 60 days. At the end of the comment period, the agency will use the feedback to inform a future rulemaking, which is expected later this year.

Billings of the American Lung Association noted that the White House's regulatory affairs office took more than five months — from August to January — to review the proposed legal finding. He urged the Biden administration to “speed up the progress” on the rulemaking.

Julie McNamara, deputy policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, echoed that sentiment, noting that lives depend on the effort.

“Hazardous air pollution is still killing and sickening people,” McNamara said in a statement. “The costs and consequences of this ongoing pollution — and the fact that the harms of air pollution fall disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color — have never been more evident.”

Pressure points

States get $1.15 billion to plug orphaned wells

Curtis Shuck, founder of the Well Done Foundation, an organization that caps abandoned oil and gas wells, checks measurements near Shelby, Mont. 

(Adrián Sánchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

The White House on Monday announced that it will send $1.15 billion to states to plug thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells, which can leak methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, The Post’s Tik Root reports.

Congress approved the funding for orphaned well cleanup as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package that Biden signed into law in November.

Along with the funding for 26 states, the White House said it plans to form an interagency working group to measure and report planet-warming gases across the country, with a focus on methane, which has more than 80 times the warming potential than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

The Biden administration also outlined steps to enforce requirements for pipeline operators to minimize methane leaks and to research how to reduce methane emissions from beef and dairy systems.

On the Hill

‘Front-line’ Democrats push for climate provisions in Build Back Better

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) at a news conference on Capitol Hill. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

A group of House Democrats running for reelection in competitive districts yesterday called on the Senate to pass the climate provisions in the Build Back Better Act.

The “front-line” Democrats — including New ​Democrat Coalition Chair Suzan DelBene (Wash.) and Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Katie Porter (Calif.) and Abigail Spanberger (Va.) — urged the Senate to swiftly advance the $555 billion in climate spending on a call organized by the League of Conservation Voters.

“We need to invest in a cleaner grid and transportation system to be sure our rural businesses and communities are not left behind as we work to rebuild our economy in the wake of the pandemic,” said Spanberger, who faces a tough race in Virginia's 7th Congressional District.

Many Democrats are hoping that Build Back Better passes before Biden delivers his State of the Union address on March 1. But Porter poked fun at Congress's infamous inability to meet its own self-imposed deadlines.

“I think if Congress had a slogan, it would be 'Solving yesterday's problems tomorrow. Maybe,'” Porter said.

Extreme events

Climate change will cause flooding losses to spike, study finds

Flooding in Marshfield, Mass., on Jan. 29.

 (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)

Climate change will increase U.S. flooding losses more than 26 percent over the next three decades, with disadvantaged communities bearing the brunt of the economic burden, according to a study released Monday, The Post’s Aaron Gregg reports.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, concludes that flood risk will increase twice as fast in predominantly Black communities. The authors identified reasons for that disparity, noting that the Southeastern United States, which is expected to experience more hurricanes as temperatures rise, is home to large Black populations.

The researchers at the University of Bristol in Britain also projected that the annual cost of flooding will increase from its current estimated level of $32.1 billion to $40.6 billion by 2050.

Climate in the courts

More than 70 groups urge Biden administration not to appeal leasing decision

A man fishes near drilling platforms in Port Aransas, Tex., on May 8, 2020. 

(Eric Gay/AP)

The coalition of more than 70 climate-focused groups today sent a letter to Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging the administration not to appeal a court decision that invalidated the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation's history.

The administration “should not continue to defend unlawful drilling for oil and gas in public waters in appellate court given the impacts on our climate, clear violations of federal environmental standards and public commitments made by President Biden to end the practice,” the groups wrote.

Signers of the letter included RL Miller, founder of ​​​​​​Climate Hawks Vote, and Laura Neish, executive director of 350 Bay Area.

A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, Melissa Schwartz, redirected questions about the letter to the Justice Department, which does not comment on ongoing litigation.​

Corporate commitments

Amazon led a record year in corporate clean energy purchases worldwide

Global corporations purchased more than 30 gigawatts of renewable energy last year, with online retail giant Amazon accounting for 20 percent, according to a report from BloombergNEF, Bloomberg’s Mark Chediak reports.

Amazon’s total clean energy capacity reached 13.9 gigawatts in 2021, giving it the 12th-largest clean energy portfolio among all kinds of companies. Overall, BNEF said corporate buyers were responsible for more than 10 percent of all renewable energy capacity added globally last year — equivalent to more than a third of California’s generation capacity.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Viral
Darryl Fears, who covers environmental justice for The Post, has an explanation for all the snowy owl sightings popping up on your social media feeds. He reported back in 2014 that the snowy owl population has boomed because of abundant prey: the stubby-legged Arctic lemming.

Reducing methane emissions at landfills

Loci Controls, founded by two MIT alumni, helps landfill operators capture more of the potent greenhouse gas.

Zach Winn | MIT News Office
Publication Date: February 2, 2022

The startup Loci Controls, begun at MIT, uses solar-powered devices to improve methane capture at gas collection wells in landfills.
Credits: Courtesy of Loci Controls

The second-largest driver of global warming is methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfills are a major source of methane, which is created when organic material decomposes underground.

Now a startup that began at MIT is aiming to significantly reduce methane emissions from landfills with a system that requires no extra land, roads, or electric lines to work. The company, Loci Controls, has developed a solar-powered system that optimizes the collection of methane from landfills so more of it can be converted into natural gas.

At the center of Loci’s (pronounced “low-sigh”) system is a lunchbox-sized device that attaches to methane collection wells, which vacuum the methane up to the surface for processing. The optimal vacuum force changes with factors like atmospheric pressure and temperature. Loci’s system monitors those factors and adjusts the vacuum force at each well far more frequently than is possible with field technicians making manual adjustments.

“We expect to reduce methane emissions more than any other company in the world over the next five years,” Loci Controls CEO Peter Quigley ’85 says. The company was founded by Melinda Hale Sims SM ’09, PhD ’12 and Andrew Campanella ’05, SM ’13.

The reason for Quigley’s optimism is the high concentration of landfill methane emissions. Most landfill emissions in the U.S. come from about 1,000 large dumps. Increasing collection of methane at those sites could make a significant dent in the country’s overall emissions.

In one landfill where Loci’s system was installed, for instance, the company says it increased methane sales at an annual rate of 180,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That’s about the same as removing 40,000 cars from the road for a year.

Loci’s system is currently installed on wells in 15 different landfills. Quigley says only about 70 of the 1,000 big landfills in the U.S. sell gas profitably. Most of the others burn the gas. But Loci’s team believes increasing public and regulatory pressure will help expands its potential customer base.

Uncovering a major problem

The idea for Loci came from a revelation by Sims’ father, serial entrepreneur Michael Hale SM ’85, PhD ’89. The elder Hale was working in wastewater management when he was contacted by a landfill in New York that wanted help using its excess methane gas.

“He realized if he could help that particular landfill with the problem, it would apply to almost any landfill,” Sims says.

At the time, Sims was pursuing her PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT and minoring in entrepreneurship.

Her father didn’t have time to work on the project, but Sims began exploring technology solutions to improve methane capture at landfills in her business classes. The work was unrelated to her PhD, but her advisor, David Hardt, the Ralph E. and Eloise F. Cross Professor in Manufacturing at MIT, was understanding. (Hardt had also served as PhD advisor for Sim’s father, who was, after all, the person to blame for Sim’s new side project.)

Sims partnered with Andrew Campanella, then a master’s student focused on electrical engineering, and the two went through the delta v summer accelerator program hosted by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

Quigley was retired but serving on multiple visiting committees at MIT when he began mentoring Loci’s founders. He’d spent his career commercializing reinforced plastic through two companies, one in the high-performance sporting goods industry and the other in oil field services.

“What captured my imagination was the emissions-reduction opportunity,” Quigley says.

Methane is generated in landfills when organic waste decomposes. Some landfill operators capture the methane by drilling hundreds of collection wells. The vacuum pressure of those wells needs to be adjusted to maximize the amount of methane collected, but Quigley says technicians can only make those adjustments manually about once a month.

Loci’s devices monitor gas composition, temperature, and environmental factors like barometric pressure to optimize vacuum power every hour. The data the controllers collect is aggregated in an analytics platform for technicians to monitor remotely. That data can also be used to pinpoint well failure events, such as flooding during rain, and otherwise improve operations to increase the amount of methane captured.

“We can adjust the valves automatically, but we also have data that allows on-site operators to identify and remedy problems much more quickly,” Quigley explains.

Furthering a high-impact mission

Methane capture at landfills is becoming more urgent as improvements in detection technologies are revealing discrepancies between methane emission estimates and reality in the industry. A new airborne methane sensor deployed by NASA, for instance, found that California landfills have been leaking methane at rates as much as six times greater than estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The difference has major implications for the Earth’s atmosphere.

A reckoning will have to occur to motivate more waste management companies to start collecting methane and to optimize methane capture. That could come in the form of new collection standards or an increased emphasis on methane collection from investors. (Funds controlled by billionaires Bill Gates and Larry Fink are major investors in waste management companies.)

For now, Loci’s team, including co-founder and current senior advisor Sims, believes it’s on the road to making a meaningful impact under current market conditions.

“When I was in grad school, the majority of the focus on emissions was on CO2,” Sims says. “I think methane is a really high-impact place to be focused, and I think it’s been underestimated how valuable it could be to apply technology to the industry.”

Minority women most affected if abortion is banned, limited

'I SUPPORT FEDERAL FULLY FUNDED ABORTION RIGHTS' BARBARA BUSH

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS and LEAH WILLINGHAM

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The Mississippi director for Planned Parenthood Southeast, Tyler Harden, tells an audience of reproductive rights supporters that efforts to limit abortion access are "just another form of oppression" for women of color, at a rally in Smith Park Jackson, Miss., on Dec. 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — If you are Black or Hispanic in a conservative state that already limits access to abortions, you are far more likely than a white woman to have one.

And if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to further restrict or even ban abortions, minority women will bear the brunt of it, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press.

The numbers are unambiguous. In Mississippi, people of color comprise 44% of the population but 80% of women receiving abortions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks health statistics.

In Texas, they’re 59% of the population and 74% of those receiving abortions. The numbers in Alabama are 35% and 70%. In Louisiana, minorities represent 42% of the population, according to the state Health Department, and about 72% of those receiving abortions.

“Abortion restrictions are racist,” said Cathy Torres, a 25-year-old organizing manager with Frontera Fund, a Texas organization that helps women pay for abortions. “They directly impact people of color, Black, brown, Indigenous people ... people who are trying to make ends meet.”

Why the great disparities? Laurie Bertram Roberts, executive director of the Alabama-based Yellowhammer Fund, which provides financial support for women seeking abortion, said women of color in states with restrictive abortion laws often have limited access to health care and a lack of choices for effective birth control. Schools often have ineffective or inadequate sex education.

If abortions are outlawed, those same women — often poor — will likely have the hardest time traveling to distant parts of the country to terminate pregnancies or raising children they might struggle to afford, said Roberts, who is Black and once volunteered at Mississippi’s only abortion clinic.

“We’re talking about folks who are already marginalized,” Roberts said.

Amanda Furdge, who is Black, was one of those women. She was a single, unemployed college student already raising one baby in 2014 when she found out she was pregnant with another. She said she didn’t know how she could afford another child.

She’d had two abortions in Chicago. Getting access to an abortion provider there was no problem, Furdge said. But now she was in Mississippi, having moved home to escape an abusive relationship. Misled by advertising, she first went to a crisis pregnancy center which tried to talk her out of an abortion. By the time she found the abortion clinic, she was too far along to have the procedure.

“Why can’t you safely, easily access abortion here?” asked Furdge, 34, who is happily raising her now 7-year-old son but continues to advocate for women having the right to choose.

Torres said historically, anti-abortion laws have been crafted in ways that hurt low-income women. She pointed to the Hyde Amendment, a 1980 law that prevents the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in rare cases.

She also cited the 2021 Texas law that bans abortion after around six weeks of pregnancy. Where she lives, near the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, women are forced to travel to obtain abortions and must pass in-state border patrol checkpoints where they have to disclose their citizenship status, she said.

Regardless of what legislators say, Torres insisted, the intent is to target women of color, to control their bodies: “They know who these restrictions are going to affect. They know that, but they don’t care.”

But Andy Gipson, a former member of the Mississippi Legislature who is now the state’s agriculture and commerce commissioner, said race had nothing to do with passage of Mississippi’s law against abortion after the 15th week. That law is now before the Supreme Court in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Gipson, a Baptist minister who is white, said he believes all people are created in the image of God and have an “innate value” that starts at conception. Mississippi legislators were trying to protect women and babies by putting limits on abortion, he said.

“I absolutely disagree with the concept that it’s racist or about anything other than saving babies’ lives,” said Gipson, a Republican. “It’s about saving lives of the unborn and the lives and health of the mother, regardless of what color they are.”
Full Coverage: Abortion

To those who say that forcing women to have babies will subject them to hardships, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a white Republican, said it is “easier for working mothers to balance professional success and family life” than it was 49 years ago when Roe was decided.

Fitch, who is divorced, often points to her own experience of working outside the home while raising three children. But Fitch grew up in an affluent family and has worked in the legal profession — both factors that can give working women the means and the flexibility to get help raising children.

That’s not the case for many minority women in Mississippi or elsewhere. Advocates say in many places where abortion services are being curtailed, there’s little support for women who carry a baby to term.

Mississippi is one of the poorest states, and people in low-wage jobs often don’t receive health insurance. Women can enroll in Medicaid during pregnancy, but that coverage disappears soon after they give birth.

Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black infants were about twice as likely as white infants to die during the first year of life in Mississippi, according to the March of Dimes.

Across the country, U.S. Census Bureau information analyzed by The Associated Press shows fewer Black and Hispanic women have health insurance, especially in states with tight abortion restrictions. For example, in Texas, Mississippi and Georgia, at least 16% of Black women and 36% of Latinas were uninsured in 2019, some of the highest such rates in the country.

Problems are compounded in states without effective education programs about reproduction. Mississippi law says sex education in public schools must emphasize abstinence to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Discussion of abortion is forbidden, and instructors may not demonstrate how to use condoms or other contraception.

The Mississippi director for Planned Parenthood Southeast, Tyler Harden, is a 26-year-old Black woman who had an abortion five years ago, an experience that drove her to a career supporting pregnant women and preserving abortion rights.

She said when she was attending public school in rural Mississippi, she didn’t learn about birth control. Instead, a teacher stuck clear tape on students’ arms. The girls were told to put it on another classmate’s arm, and another, and watch how it lost the ability to form a bond.

“They’d tell you, ‘If you have sex, this is who you are now: You’re just like this piece of tape — all used up and washed up and nobody would want it,’” Harden said.

When she became pregnant at 21, she knew she wanted an abortion. Her mother was battling cancer and Harden was in her last semester of college without a job or a place to live after graduation.

She said she was made to feel fear and shame, just as she had during sex ed classes. When she went to the clinic, she said protesters told her she was “‘killing the most precious gift’” from God and that she was ”‘killing a Black baby, playing into what white supremacists want.’”

Harden’s experience is not uncommon. The anti-abortion movement has often portrayed the abortion fight in racial terms.

Outside the only abortion clinic operating in Mississippi, protesters hand out brochures that refer to abortion as Black “genocide” and say the late Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and a proponent of eugenics, “desired to eradicate minorities.” The brochures compare Sanger to Adolf Hitler and proclaim: “Black lives did not matter to Margaret Sanger!”

The Mississippi clinic is not affiliated with Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood itself denounces Sanger’s belief in eugenics.

White people are not alone in making this argument. Alveda King, an evangelist who is a niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is among the Black opponents of abortion who, for years, have been portraying abortion as a way to wipe out people of their race.

Tanya Britton, a former president of Pro-Life Mississippi, often drives three hours from her home in the northern part of the state to pray outside the abortion clinic in Jackson. Britton is Black, and she said it’s a tragedy that the number of Black babies aborted since Roe would equal the population of several large cities. She also said people are too casual about terminating pregnancies.

“You just can’t take the life of someone because this is not convenient — ‘I want to finish my education,’” Britton said. “You wouldn’t kill your 2-year-old because you were in graduate school.”

But state Rep. Zakiya Summers of Jackson, who is Black and a mother, suggested there’s nothing casual about what poor women are doing. Receiving little support in Mississippi — for example, the Legislature killed a proposal to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage in 2021 -- they are sometimes forced to make hard decisions.

“Women are just out here trying to survive, you know?” she said. “And Mississippi doesn’t make it any easier.”

____

Associated Press reporters Noreen Nasir in Jackson, Mississippi, and Jasen Lo in Chicago contributed to this report.

Hunger crisis looms in Nigeria’s ‘food basket’ amid conflict
By CHINEDU ASADU

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Ibrahim Mohammed, left, a farmer who lost most of his seedlings and farmlands to violent attacks in Nigeria's north, works on a rice farm along with his family members in Agatu village on the outskirts of Benue State in northcentral Nigeria, Wednesday, Jan 5, 2022. Across northern Nigeria, at least 13 million are now facing hunger amid a lean season, according to the U.N. World Food Program. The violence has also disrupted the sales of food as roads are too unsafe for farmers to transport crops and marketplaces have been razed by attackers. (AP Photo/ Chinedu Asadu)


AGATU, Nigeria (AP) — It’s 2 p.m. and Hannah Mgbede asks her husband if she can take her first break of the day from threshing rice so she can breastfeed their 18-month-old baby girl fastened to her back during the grueling work.

Her husband Ibrahim Mohammed, 45, used to harvest as many as 10 bags of rice a year from his farm. But that dropped to just three bags after attackers burned his home to the ground a few years ago, as violence between farmers and herders escalated across the northwest and central parts of Nigeria.

With that decreased yield, Mohammed hasn’t made enough money to buy seedlings to grow yams, soybeans and guinea corn (sorghum).

“Sometimes we manage to eat once (a day),” says Mohammed, who has three children, aged five and younger. “Since the crisis, it is only by the grace of God we are feeding to remain alive.”

Here in Benue state, harvests of rice, yams and soybeans were once so bountiful that it was called the “food basket of Nigeria.” But waves of violence over the last several years have reduced crops in the northcentral state of Africa’s most populous nation.

More than 1 million farmers in the state have been displaced because of the intercommunal violence between herders and farmers competing for water and land, say officials.

Women and children return from their farmlands after the day's work in Agatu village on the outskirts of Benue State in northcentral Nigeria, Wednesday, Jan 5, 2022. Across northern Nigeria, at least 13 million are now facing hunger amid a lean season, according to the U.N. World Food Program. The violence has also disrupted the sales of food as roads are too unsafe for farmers to transport crops and marketplaces have been razed by attackers. (AP Photo/ Chinedu Asadu)

“We are heading to a food crisis,” Benue state Gov. Samuel Ortom told The Associated Press.

Across northern Nigeria, at least 13 million are now facing hunger amid a lean season, according to the U.N. World Food Program. The violence has also disrupted the sales of food as roads are too unsafe for farmers to transport crops and marketplaces have been razed by attackers.

Rice production has dropped so much that its price has jumped more than 60% in Benue state as well as some other parts of the country.

“There is a very real risk of famine because both conflict and COVID-19 has made it harder to reach those most in need,” a spokesperson of the U.N. agency told AP.

Thousands of Nigerians have been killed in the decades-long clashes between agrarian communities and nomadic cattle herders who are fighting over limited access to water and grazing land. The farmers often accuse the herders of encroaching in their fields while the herders, mostly from the Fulani ethnic group, claim the croplands are their traditional grazing routes.

The government has now launched an initiative under the National Livestock Transformation Plan in the hope of resolving the conflict which has been worsened by the proliferation of arms and the government’s failure to prosecute past perpetrators from both groups.


Mtonga Iliamgee, an internally displaced person at the Guma IDPs camp, prepares flour as the first meal for her family inside the camp in Benue State in northcentral Nigeria, Thursday, Jan 6, 2022.Across northern Nigeria, at least 13 million are now facing hunger amid a lean season, according to the U.N. World Food Program. The violence has also disrupted the sales of food as roads are too unsafe for farmers to transport crops and marketplaces have been razed by attackers. (AP Photo/ Chinedu Asadu)

About 3,000 people who have fled the violence in Benue state are now living at a camp in Guma local government area.

Mtonga Iliamgee, 43, says every day is a struggle to feed her family of 10. She was seen preparing their only meal of the day at 1 p.m.

“We live for the day and we don’t know what tomorrow could bring,” she says.

Felix Agune, the deputy head of the camp school, says some children come to class crying that they’ve had no breakfast. Non-government organizations are trying to fill the gap but it is “nothing compared to the massive hunger spread across Benue state,” said Rex Elanu, a program director for the One to One Healthcare Initiative.

Government officials insist they are working to make farmlands safe enough for people to return and work the land. They’re also trying to encourage nomadic herders to take up ranching so they are less at odds with farmers.

Seeds and fertilizers have also been supplied to farmers in the past to enhance food production, cushion the effect of the pandemic and encourage more youths to go into agriculture, according to a spokesman of the agriculture ministry.

Despite the violence, Nigerian farmers have been able to produce enough crops to keep the country self-sufficient in staples such as rice, cassava and yams.

“Nigeria survived with the produce generated by the smallholder farmers,” Theodore Ogaziechi of the agriculture ministry said. “The farmers are doing their utmost best to feed the nation.”

Farmers are resilient but also afraid because some who have attempted to go back to their farms have been killed, warned Ortom, the governor of Benue state.

“If there is security for these farmers, we’ll continue to retain our position as the food basket of the nation,” he said. “But if nothing is done, as it is now, it is a big challenge.”

Leaked text suggests possible US-Russia missile arrangement

1 of 7In this photo taken from video and released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, Russian and Belarusian tanks and military helicopters attend a joint military drills at Brestsky firing range, Belarus. Russian and Belarus troops held joint combat training at firing ranges in Belarus Wednesday as tensions remain high under the looming threat of war with Ukraine. The drills involved motorized rifle, artillery and anti-tank missile units, as well tanks' and armoured personnel carriers' crews. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

By LORNE COOK and DASHA LITVINOVA

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States could be willing to enter into an agreement with Russia to ease tensions over missile deployments in Europe if Moscow steps back from the brink in Ukraine, according to a leaked document published in a Spanish newspaper on Wednesday.

The daily El Pais published two documents purported to be written replies from the United States and NATO last week to Russia’s proposals for a new security arrangement in Europe. The U.S. State department declined to comment on them.

In reference to the second document, NATO said that it never comments on “alleged leaks.” But the text closely reflects statements made to the media last week by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as he laid out the 30-nation military organization’s position on Russia’s demands.

The U.S. document, marked as a confidential “non-paper,” said that the United States would be willing to discuss in consultation with its NATO partners “a transparency mechanism to confirm the absences of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland.”

That would happen on condition that Russia “offers reciprocal transparency measures on two ground-launched missiles bases of our choosing in Russia.”

Aegis Ashore is a system for defending against short- or intermediate-range missiles. But Russia has claimed in the past that the U.S. could attack its territory with Tomahawk intermediate-range missiles should they be deployed to Aegis Ashore sites. The U.S. document said Washington would have to consult with NATO allies on the potential offer, particularly with Romania and Poland.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the leaked documents, saying only that “we didn’t release anything.” In comments to the state RIA Novosti news agency, Russia’s Foreign Ministry also refused to confirm or deny that the documents published by El Pais were authentic.

Fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine have mounted in recent months, after President Vladimir Putin deployed more than 100,000 troops to areas near Ukraine’s borders, including in neighboring Belarus, backed by tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes. Russian officials have insisted that Moscow has no intention of invading.

The U.S. underlined after its written proposals in the leaked document that “progress can only be achieved on these issues in an environment of de-escalation with respect to Russia’s threatening actions towards Ukraine.”

Full Coverage: Russia-Ukraine

In his first public remarks on the standoff in more than a month, Putin on Tuesday accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s central security demands but he said that Moscow is willing to talk more to ease tensions over Ukraine.

His remarks suggested that a potential Russian invasion may not be imminent and that at least one more round of diplomacy is likely.

After talks in Kyiv Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte underlined that “it is essential for dialogue to continue.” If not, Rutte, said, “it is clear that further aggression against Ukraine will have serious consequences.”

Notable in its absence from the leaked documents is any mention of Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO. Putin has demanded that NATO stop taking in any new members and withdraw its troops and equipment from countries that joined the alliance since 1997, almost half its ranks.

In the leaked document linked to NATO, the 30 allies said they “reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door policy,” without specifically mentioning Ukraine. Under Article 10 of NATO’s founding treaty, other European countries may be invited in if they further the goals of European security.

At a NATO summit in 2008, NATO leaders said that they welcomed “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO,” adding: “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

Russia invaded Georgia later that year, and in 2014 annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Around 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict that still simmers in eastern Ukraine. Their membership plans have been on hold for years, although NATO continues to support them and promote reforms.

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Litvinova reported from Moscow. Matt Lee in Washington, Aritz Parra in Madrid and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.

#ENDTHEDEATHPENALTY
Former Tennessee death row prisoner's new life sentences to be concurrent


Monday's ruling means Pervis Payne will be eligible for parole in five years. File Photo courtesy of PervisPayne.org

Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A Tennessee judge has ruled that a former death row inmate's new life sentences will be served at the same time, meaning he'll be eligible for parole in five years.

Pervis Payne was initially sentenced to death in 1988 for the slayings of Charisse Christopher, 28, and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo, in 1987 in Shelby County. Prosecutors said he also non-fatally injured Christopher's 3-year-old son, Nicholas.

But his sentence was reversed in November and replaced with two life sentences after Payne's lawyers challenged the death penalty based on his intellectual disability.

On Monday, 30th Judicial District Criminal Court Judge Paula Shakan ruled that the two life sentences must be served concurrently, making him eligible for parole after 39 years in prison -- about five years from now.

Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich called on the Tennessee attorney general's office to appeal Shakan's decision.

"We respectfully disagree with Judge Skahan's interpretation of the new statute that removed the one-year statute of limitations on claims of intellectual disability. The statute does not authorize changing the original trial judge's ruling that multiple sentences in the case should be consecutive," Weirich said.

Kelley Henry, Pervis's attorney, praised Shakan for "thoughtfully and deliberately" considering the matter

"She followed Tennessee law, which favors concurrent sentences and places the burden on the state to prove that consecutive sentencing is necessary to protect the public," Henry said in a statement to UPI. "The Shelby County D.A. was effectively asking for a sentence of life without parole -- which is not authorized under the law. The plain fact is, Pervis Payne is no threat to society and he never was.

Myanmar on brink of economic collapse one year after military coup

A year after the military seized control of the country, Myanmar is facing a "multidimensional humanitarian crisis," the International Labour Organization has warned.


An estimated 14.4 million people in Myanmar are now in need of humanitarian assistance

Ma Aye, a 35-year-old office worker in Myanmar's former capital, Yangon, strategically skips meals to save money.

"In the past, I used to buy breakfast from a tea shop near my office after early check-in at the office. Now, I skip my breakfast and eat my lunch early which I prepare and bring from home," Ma Aye told DW.

"So, instead of eating breakfast and lunch," Ma said, "I eat brunch nowadays to cut my spending."

On social media platforms, people who face economic hardships share tips on how to save coins in daily life.

But Aye considers herself among the luckier ones. Unlike many around her, she still has a job.

Nearly half of population living in poverty

Myanmar's annual employment losses in 2021 amounted to an estimated 8%, or 1.6 million jobs lost, indicating a sizable decrease from employment of 20.5 million in 2020, the International Labor Organization (ILO) stated in its January 2022 report. The estimates cover the whole labor force of Myanmar, including formal and informal economy workers.

The country's construction, garment, tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit, according to the report, as were rural farmers.

Watch video 01:40 Myanmar in a state of turmoil one year since the military coup

In addition, an estimated 25 million people (almost half Myanmar's population) were living in poverty by the end of 2021, and 14.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance, the ILO reported.

The World Bank, meanwhile, said in its January report that Myanmar's economy is about 30% smaller than it might have been in the absence of the pandemic and the military coup.

International sanctions, a halt in foreign aid and the withdrawal of foreign investors have all pushed Myanmar to the brink of economic collapse.

Ongoing political turmoil and conflict between the military and armed resistance groups have also complicated the socioeconomic and public health challenges of the pandemic. Businesses all over Myanmar are facing bankruptcy.
More frequent blackouts expected

Millions of people, including civil servants and private sector workers, have joined Myanmar's civil disobedience anti-coup movement, refusing to pay electricity bills and taxes until the military is ousted.

Businesses, especially factories, have also suffered from daily power outages. As most of Myanmar's electricity generation depends on hydropower, dry season will prove to be an additional challenge.

"This summer will be really tough. There will be longer and more frequent blackouts," Ko Oo, a business owner, told DW.

"I cannot use generators to run my factory as gasoline prices are sky high. I will only operate only when power is on. My production capacity would be greatly reduced," Ko Oo said.

GENERAL STRIKE IN MYANMAR ON 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF COUP

Yangon emptied one year after coup

Strand Road, a normally busy thoroughfare in Yangon, is deserted on Tuesday as those opposing Myanmar's military junta organized a nationwide strike marking the one-year anniversary of a military coup that toppled the Southeast Asian country's democratically elected government.

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Children living in poverty on the rise

The number of people living in poverty in Myanmar is expected to have more than doubled from before the pandemic, according to the World Bank.

Min Maung, 40, told DW that he is concerned about a surge in child poverty in Yangon.

"Since COVID, we have started to see an increase of child beggars at traffic lights," he said.

"After the coup, many more showed up. Only when you give money, they will leave. Now I am getting afraid to stop at traffic lights," he added.

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum

Myanmar women take the lead in resisting the military

The issue of gender equality in Myanmar is in the spotlight again. Women are on the frontlines of the anti-coup protests taking place since the junta ousted the civilian government a year ago.

Since the Myanmar military brutally put down the mass protests that began following the February 1 coup last year, flash mobs have repeatedly gathered in major cities such as Yangon and Mandalay to protest against the military junta.

The mostly young demonstrators unfurl posters, chant slogans and walk through the streets, only to disperse into the side streets shortly thereafter.

The protests are life-threatening, as the security forces often shoot without warning, or drive their vehicles into the demonstrators. Videos posted on social media clearly show that women are always on the frontlines.

Htet Htar, 25, says street protests are no longer enough. Last June, she joined the so-called People's Defense Forces, which is spearheading the armed resistance against the regime.

"What other option do I have? The military has taken away everything from us. I joined the resistance to liberate my country," she told DW. "I keep thinking about a liberated Burma," she added.

A patriarchal society

It was evident from the very beginning that women and their position in society played a special role in the protests.

In February and March 2021, when there were large street protests throughout the country and the military began to violently put down the demonstrations, the protesters used the superstitions of the approaching soldiers against the military

Watch video 01:40 Myanmar in a state of turmoil one year since the military coup

They hung women's traditional wraparound skirts over the streets or barricades and used them as flags. The superstition is that if a man passes under women's clothes, he loses physical and spiritual virility. While the action did not permanently stop the military, some soldiers actually took a detour to avoid going under them, which gave the protesters much needed time to get to safety.

Myanmar is a conservative country where men call the shots, even though there have always been strong women like Aung San Suu Kyi. But they are more of an exception.

The military is particularly steeped in the conservative tradition, seeing itself as the preserver of the "real" Myanmar, in which ethnic minorities and women are relegated to secondary status.

"The military has never supported women," Naw Hser Hser, secretary-general of the Women's League of Burma (WLB), told DW.

Army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup, told state media in early March 2021 that protesters were "wearing indecent clothes contrary to Myanmar culture," which many believe is a reference to female protesters in pants. "Such acts intend to harm the morality of people, so legal actions are necessary," the army chief said.

Constitution favors men

The constitution drafted by the army in 2008 also reflects the military's paternalistic attitude.

It is true that Article 352 states that no citizen of the country shall be discriminated because of race, birth, religion or sex. However, it is immediately followed by the contradictory sentence, "nothing in this Section shall prevent appointment of men to the positions that are suitable for men only."

PROTEST MOVEMENT SYMBOLS GRAB ATTENTION

Three-finger salute

In Myanmar, people show the three-finger salute as a sign of protest against the military coup. The gesture stems from the dystopian novel and film series "Hunger Games" and has also been a symbol of resistance in neighboring Thailand, which has been under a military dictatorship since 2014. There, some protesters were arrested when they showed the salute.

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The Union Solidarity and Development Party, seen as the party of the military, fielded less than 6% female candidates in the 2015 elections.

Shortly before the elections, under pressure from conservative Buddhists, they pushed through a law regulating the marriage of Buddhist women to non-Buddhist men. Before marrying, the couple had to register with the authorities and declare, among other things, that the woman would not be encouraged to convert and that the children would be free to practice their religion. Buddhist men who married non-Buddhist women, however, were not required to make a declaration.

Things were not much better under Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, which also had only 15% women members in 2015. In fact, the NLD has done little in terms of equality between its election victory in 2015 and until the coup in 2021.
New image of women

But something has changed since the coup, says WLB's Naw Hser Hser. The women's network, for instance, has grown considerably since the coup on February 1, 2021. While it used to be mainly women from ethnic minority areas who had been campaigning against the military for years, many women and women's organizations from the nation's heartland have now also entered into close cooperation with the WLB. Naw Hser Hser estimates that about four out of five women oppose the military junta, even if not all of them organize or dare to openly resist.

Parts of the resistance are also organized and carried mainly by women. The civil disobedience movement (CDM), one of the first movements against the coup, began in hospitals and later expanded to schools, among other places. Women make up a very high percentage of those working in the medical and educational professions. The local NGO Gender Equality Network estimates that 70 to 80% of CDM leaders are women.

Watch video 02:26 Myanmar's military junta found to be torturing detainees

Activists Esther Ze Naw Bamvo and Ei Thinzar Maung, who is now the government-in-exile's deputy minister for women, youth and children, and who were instrumental in organizing the nationwide protests at the start, were named among the 100 most influential people of the year by the US Time magazine in September 2021.

"In 1988, the leaders were men. This time, they're women. It is exciting," said Daw Khin Ohmar, an activist of the group 88 Generation.

In 1988, there had been a popular uprising in Myanmar against the regime, which was put down by the military.

Women have been playing a role not just in the civil resistance movement, they have also been taking up key positions in politics, said Naw Hser Hser.

The National Unity Government (NUG), the government-in-exile, appears more inclusive than any previous government. In addition to Suu Kyi, whom the military has placed under house arrest but who continues to symbolically hold the office of state councilor, a woman, Zin Mar Aung, holds the post of foreign minister. Zin Mar Aung had previously advocated for women and understanding with ethnic minorities.

Discussions at the grass roots level

"That's good. But we haven't reached our goal yet. We want that women are involved in all decisions on all levels," said Naw Hser Hser.

The activist said she's very pleased to see gender equality firmly anchored in the constitution that the NUG is currently drafting.

Naw Hser Hser pointed out that women are being perceived differently in the villages and markets since the coup.

Previously, she said, issues such as gender equality and women's rights were mainly discussed by NGOs and civil society. But since the coup, with women playing an active and visible role, these discussions have expanded, the activist noted. "On the grass root levels, people have started talking about women being part of the revolution and that they should have a say in the future."

Watch video 00:40 Myanmar junta extends rule, promises elections by 2023

Additional reporting by Annie Zaman.

The article was originally written in German.

Edited by: Shamil Shams

European Commission declares nuclear and gas to be green

The European Commission has labeled nuclear and gas as sustainable. Critics are calling the step "greenwashing" and say it could threaten the bloc's bid to become climate-neutral by 2050.


Nuclear energy is criticized by environmentalists, among other reasons due to very large water use

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen cannot repeat often enough how close stepping up climate action is to her heart.

She described the European Green Deal as "Europe's man on the moon moment." She has called climate neutrality "our European destiny." And she solemnly proclaimed that no effort will be spared for Europe to become the world's first continent with net-zero emissions.

But as often, the devil is in the detail.

The big question is how exactly the European Union intends to achieve its goals.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paints herself as a friend of the climate

One measure being put into place is a so-called taxonomy, "a classification system, establishing a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities," according to the European Commission.

This taxonomy could be described as the EU's green investment rulebook, intended to serve the goal of allowing the continent to become climate neutral by 2050.
Can gas and nuclear be green?

Critics say the objective of climate neutrality could be under threat, as the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, decided to give nuclear energy and natural gas a green label under this taxonomy.

Watch video 04:15 EU Commission labels nuclear energy, gas as green: Jutta Paulus (Greens) speaks to DW

In a proposal presented this Wednesday, the EU Commission stated that certain strings remained attached. For example, gas plants could only be considered green if the facility switched to low-carbon or renewable gases, such as biomass or hydrogen produced with renewable energy, by 2035.

Nuclear power plants would be deemed green if the sites can manage to safely dispose of radioactive waste. So far, worldwide, no permanent disposal site, has gone into operation though.

At a news conference in Brussels, Mairead McGuinness, the EU commissioner responsible for financial services, said her institution was not guilty of "greenwashing," as gas and nuclear were labeled as "transitional" energy sources in the taxonomy. "Our credibility is still strong," McGuinness added.


Natural gas can be liquified, allowing it to be shipped relatively easily via tanker

Environmental organizations most certainly see this critically, saying the proposal could jeopardize the EU's aim to reach climate neutrality by 2050. The Climate Action Network Europe wrote that the EU Commission "sacrifices the scientific integrity of the taxonomy on the altar of fossil gas and nuclear lobbies" and failed to "reorient financial flows towards genuinely climate-positive investments."

And it's not just climate activists: Also a group of experts advising the EU on the matter had announced how they are worried about "the environmental impacts that may result," for example the consequences of a nuclear accident. Building new nuclear plants would also take too long to contribute to the 2050 neutrality goals, they believe.

The proposal was preceded by a heated debate among EU countries. While some consider nuclear to be a good bridging technology, others are strongly opposed, and prefer gas instead.


Germany has opted to use gas as a bridge away from more polluting fossil fuels and toward zero-carbon energy sources

Germany pro-gas, France pro-nuclear

France, which derives about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants, is — unsurprisingly — heading up the pro-nuclear fraction. It is supported by a group of EU states including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Finland.

Especially France wants to invest in new nuclear power plants, particularly in new generation, so-called small modular reactors.

Energy expert Nicolas Mazzucchi, who works for the Foundation of Strategic Research think tank in Paris, supports the French government's plans. "These reactors can be produced on an industrial level at factories, as automated as possible, to make it cheaper and guarantee quality," Mazzucchi told DW.

Germany, however, has argued against nuclear power — also unsurprisingly, as it decided to shut down all its nuclear power plants by the end of 2022 following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Denmark, Austria and Luxembourg share this view, highlighting the controversial point of where to safely store highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Watch video 03:02 France: Is nuclear energy green?

In a letter to the European Commission, Germany's current governing coalition has clearly said that gas is needed as an interim energy source until enough renewables are available.

To avoid a clash with its EU neighbor France, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz downplayed the importance of the taxonomy at an EU leaders' meeting last year, saying the debate was "completely overrated."

Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, has been following the EU's energy and climate policy for years. He said that, in the end, he was relatively sure no decision would be taken in Brussels to prevent France, for example, from investing in and building new nuclear reactors.

The Commission is keen to have the taxonomy viewed as the "gold standard" for guiding private investment toward measures that help fight climate change.

But in Zachmann's view, no investor would be interested in nuclear or gas if the EU "invested political capital" in getting member states to substantially expand their renewable energy production.

"We know that onshore wind and solar power are not very costly in most European countries," he pointed out.

Nuclear versus gas: French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

What happens next?

The European Commission's taxonomy proposal will now be reviewed by the 27 EU member states and by the European Parliament.

As the EU's executive opted for a delegated act, a type of fast-track legislative procedure, only a total of 20 EU countries, or a majority of EU lawmakers at the European Parliament, would be able to reject it.

While EU states are not likely to turn down the taxonomy, a win in the European Parliament is not yet certain. Parliamentarians from across the political spectrum have expressed anger over the inclusion of fossil gas and nuclear power in the EU taxonomy.

Green lawmaker Rasmus Andresen said he was "disappointed" by the proposal, adding that the Green parliamentary fraction would fight hard to gather a majority against the taxonomy.

German Social Democrat Joachim Schuster told DW he thought it possible that the European Parliament could vote against the act.

And even if lawmakers were to support it, there is another threat looming: Austria and Luxembourg have already threatened to sue the European Commission over the taxonomy rules.