The environment religion based circular economy concept was further systematized and promoted by Finnish EU Commissioner Jyrki Katainen and Finland’s Innovation Fund SITRA in close collaboration with the World Economic Forum in the late 2010's. This concept has been at the center of the EU legislation, which will make possible the implementation of the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the EU. I will describe in this blog, how the implementation of the Great Reset will lead to disastrous developments in the European Union using the example of two delegated acts  issued/to be issued by the EU Commission mandated by the Taxonomy regulation enacted during the Finnish presidency in 2019. The focus of my discussion is on nuclear energy and waste incineration, which are purposfully to be made so expensive with these delegated acts that they will become economically non-viable, despite their superior environmental friendliness compared to their alternatives.

In my writings, I have shown how EU Commission’s Vice President and Commissioner Jyrki Katainen (2015-2019) and SITRA (Finland’s Innovation Fund) have been colluding with the World Economic Forum (WEF), at least since 2015. Their aim from the beginning has been to promote WEF's Great Reset with the circular economy concept. The concept is ultimately based on a religious narrative about the devastating effects of climate change and nature loss on the planet's viability, which requires the complete transformation of global economy and societies to tackle the huge perceived environmental challenges (1,2,3). The first task when Mr. Katainen was appointed to become EU Commissioner was to draft and to have EU Commission to adopt Communication on the Circular Economy Action Plan (4) for the European Union. This document was pivotal as it strongly guided the future EU legislation towards implementing the Great Reset (5). The plan was published in December 2015, but the Great Reset itself was published only almost five years afterwards during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLY CRITERIA ACCORDING TO THE GREAT RESET ARE ARBITRARY AND THEY ARE BASED ON RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGICAL THINKING

The key EU legislative packages implementing the Great Reset have already been enacted with the circular economy concept being at the center of thinking. These key legislative initiatives are the circular economy package (2018), the Fit for 55 energy package (2021, 2022 and 2023) and the Taxonomy regulation. The Taxonomy regulation was adopted during the Finnish Presidency in 2019 (6). The implementation of the Taxonomy regulation in the member countries is steered by the finance ministries of the member states. The nature loss part of the WEF narrative will be handled mostly by EU's nature restoration regulation to be adopted in 2023 (7).

The aim of the taxonomy regulation is according to the WEF's green narrative to lower the capital costs for "ecofriendly" project investments and to increase capital costs of e.g. fossil fuel investment by means of delegated acts adopted by the EU Commission. The ecofriendlyness criteria for these delegated acts are made arbitrarily according to religious and ideological thinking as following "wind and solar power good, other power bad", "insect food good, meat bad", "bicycle good, car bad" (note also electric cars), "second hand clothes good, new clothes bad", "recycling good, waste incineration bad", "cloth bag good, plastic bag bad" etc. etc.

WHEN THE MAIN REGULATION HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY THE DOUBLE DECISION PROCEDURE (COUNCIL AND EU PARLIAMENT), THE ISSUANCE OF MORE DETAILED ACTS MANDATED BY THE MAIN REGULATION BEGINS WITHOUT THE MEMBER STATES' POSSIBILITY TO INFLUENCE THE CONTENT OF THE MORE DETAILED REGULATIONS TO BE ADOPTED BY THE COMMISSION

The regulation approved by the Council and the EU Parliament is hierarchically the highest form of EU legislation. It is binding legislation in the member states as such, unlike, for example, an EU directive which forces national legislatures to adopt rules stipulated in a directive adopted by Council and Parliament.

Regulations approved by the EU's double decision procedure either delegate legislative authority from the member states to the Commission or give the Commission the right to propose implementing acts to be approved by a comitology procedure. The latter procedure gives the member states some minor rights to determine the content of the implementing act, while when the Commission enacts delegated acts, the possibilities for the member states to influence the content of the delegated acts are practically non-existent.

In the following by using the example of two delegated acts issued/to be issued under the taxonomy regulation in the spirit of the Great Reset, I will describe how these delegated acts will weaken the security of energy supply, hamper sound waste management and ultimately increase greenhouse gas emissions. I also remind readers that on the basis of the Taxonomy regulation alone, destructive delegated acts are being issued in a tsunami like fashion right now in the EU to push mercilessly WEF policy agenda. These delegated acts are based on the beliefs of environmental destruction that have been imposed on populations for the last 50 years through mass communication.

THE EU GREAT RESET LEGISLATION HAS ALREADY BEEN MOSTLY ADOPTED - THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE EU LAWS HAS BEGUN

Delegated Commission Regulation regulating energy production established on the basis of the EU Taxonomy Regulation (8)

A year ago during the spring, there was a lot of talk in the mainstream newsmedia about nuclear power getting the "swan mark" (Scandinavian symbol of ecofriendlyness), i.e. that nuclear power would be labelled as green energy according to the delegated act under the Taxonomy regulation that finally came into force in July 2022.

The disappointment was great, because the delegated act purposefully contains devil’s details, which endanger the capital maintenance conditions of Finland's nuclear power plants and electricity production. The delegated act seems even to compromise the nuclear safety directives. These adverse effects on capital costs result from the delegated act’s arbitrary "transition periods" imposed for religious and ideological reasons, which lead to conflict with the requirement of technology neutrality.

In addition this act inappropriately requires that nuclear power plants should use non-existent accident tolerant fuel approved by the competent authorities, as early as 2025, .

Increasing capital costs in capital-intensive electricity production will have crippling effects on energy production. On the other hand, the requirement to rely on a fuel, which is an idea stage does not seem very reasonable. Weakening nuclear security also doesn't sound very smart either.

By adopting the logic "Solar and wind power good, other power bad" devil’s details were purposfully inserted into this delegated act.

Delegated act proposal to regulate the circular economy is now open to public scrutiny with little hope Commission would alter the proposal after this review (9)

What about the new delegated act proposal on the circular economy. What will it bring? It will regulate financing in the production of plastic packaging and electronics, financing in securing water and waste management, financing in building and road construction, financing of selling spare parts, financing of information technology production, etc. It will even regulate flea markets and aim to promote the profitability of exchanging used goods.

The delegated act proposal is so absurd that I will comment it only briefly, mainly from the point of view of municipal waste management. From this point of view alone, an exhaustive rooting of this delegated would require many pages. I will spare reader from this and concentrate on main issues.

Waste incineration is by far the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because it enables the incineration of mixed waste. This enables the combustion of the organic fraction without energy-demanding intermediate steps that consume a lot of energy, as is the case when producing biodiesel from plastic. Pipatti and partners proved this already in 1996 in VTT's publication (10), which states:

"Alternatives in which part or all of the waste is burned are the most favourable in terms of the greenhouse effect, because not only do the methane emissions from landfills decrease, energy production can achieve savings in the use of fossil fuels."

On the other hand, the simple on-site collection of mixed waste - without the complex sorting at the place of origin, which is now being set up with several bins with Jyrki Katainen's circular economy package in the EU and which is already known to be ineffective - enables waste collection with only a fraction of the mileage of heavy equipment, which is now needed tofor the collection of garbage in urban areas from several bins at source.

This delegated act proposal to regulate the circular economy further strengthens the implementation of the absurd circular economy package with an even more absurd, completely unrealistic regulations. A simple municipal waste management strategy based on waste incineration also enables the rational and economically viable recycling of metals by magnetic pre-separation or by "mining" from the bottom ash.

Waste incineration is not getting the "swan mark" in the EU with this proposed delegated act, as "recycling is good, waste incineration is bad" guides the thinking, even though, for example, plastic waste cannot be recycled in real world (PET bottles are an exception). Furthermore the requirements for green packaging plastic, which this delegated act proposal would impose, are devoid for huge number of reasons. To top it all, incineration of waste could prevent many pollution problems related to packaging plastics that this delegated act aims to reduce, such as microplastic discharges containing these impurities into waterways. Mechanical recycling of plastic requires a lot of energy and water during which a large amount of microplastic gets into waterways (11).

One of the consequences of the delegated act proposal promoting the circular economy will be an increase in the price of food, because it sets such absurd requirements for the packaging plastics produced that it will inevitably be reflected in an increase in the price of food.

Finally, what about this religious-ideological hoax "cloth bag good, plastic bag bad". In a high quality life cycle study published by the Danish Ministry of the Environment, it was shown that an eco-fabric bag needs to be used 20,000 times in order to compete with a plastic bag in terms of environmental friendliness (12).

I would also like to remind you once more that these regulations, promoted by Commissioner Jyrki Katainen and SITRA (the Finland’s Independence Memorial Fund), with circular economy concept, are now being enacted in a tsunami like fashion by the European Union Commission. Pity on us ordinary people. Why do we have these incompetent and corrupt politicians?

 

References

 

1) My article about the "miracle" of Finland's circular economy requested by Real Clear Energy.

The Circular Economy: A Return to Soviet-Style Five-Year Plans | RealClearEnergy

 

2) SITRA, Commissioner Jyrki Katainen and the World Economic Forum are taking us instead of a Green transition towards a Green destruction (oikeamedia.com)

 

3) An article on the religious nature of the World Economic Forum requested by the Catholic Postil platform.

The World Economic Forum is a Dangerous Religious Cult – The Postil Magazine

 

4) Commissioner Jyrki Katainen's presentation to the Collegium of the European Commission "Recycling - EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy", Brussels 2 December 2015, COM(2015) 614 final.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FI/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52015DC0614&from=FI

 

5) The Great Rese. https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/2940631123

 

6) The EU taxonomy regulation approved by the double decision procedure during Finland's presidency.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FI/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32020R0852&from=EN

 

7) Parliament and Council regulation on Nature Restoration. 

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52022PC0304&from=FI

 

8) The delegated act regulating the financing of the energy sector enacted last July with the transfer of the legislative power of the member states to the Commission:

EUR-Lex - 32022R1214 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)

 

9) With the transfer of the legislative powers of the member countries to the Commission, the Commission proposes a delegated regulation to be issued under the taxonomy regulation to promote the circular economy, which is now subject to public consultation:

taxonomy-regulation-delegated-act-2022-environmental-annex-2_en.pdf (europa.eu)

 

10) Pipatti R, et al. Effects of waste treatment options on greenhouse gas emissions. VTT, 1996. J811.pdf (vttresearch.com)

 

11) Mechanical recycling of plastic waste as a point source of microplastic pollution - ScienceDirect

 

12) A high-level life cycle analysis of the environmental friendliness of plastic bags published by the Danish Ministry of the Environment.

https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf