Blog Categories: big oil & gas

Fracking Legislative Package Enters into Force

Fracking torpedoes implementation of Paris Agreement on Climate Change
(German Version)

Berlin, 10 February 2017 — Today, one day before the German legislative package on fracking enters into force, environmental umbrella organization Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR) – with its member organizations Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND), Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) and Robin Wood as well as Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), Umweltinstitut München, PowerShift and Food & Water Europe – fears that now more fracking projects will be realized. They are particularly concerned that fracking in tight sandstone layers, so-called tight gas fracking, is explicitly authorized by the new legislation, and could even be permitted in otherwise protected areas. There are also loopholes allowing fracking for “research projects” in shale, clay, coal bed and marl rock formations.

With this fracking policy, the German government undermines its own goal of being a climate protection leader. At the same time more and more countries in Europe are deciding on fracking bans, the grand coalition in Germany is prolonging the fossil era and hampering the implementation of the Paris Agreement with this fracking legislation, adopted in June 2016. This is a devastating signal to the international community, particularly since Germany will be in the international spotlight, not only hosting this year’s G20 summit but also the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

“We need a clear ban on any kind of oil and gas fracking in order to reach the climate goals as adopted in the Paris Agreement. The German Government has to live up to its international promises and speed up the energy transition [Energiewende] instead of further relying on bygone ages by developing fossil fuels,” says DNR president Prof. Dr. Kai Niebert.

According to the environment protection and nature conservation organizations, it’s now also up to the German federal states to finally ban fracking. The legislative package allows federal state governments to veto research projects for fracking in shale, clay, coal bed and marl rock formations. By consistently identifying protected areas, federal states can moreover rule out tight gas fracking.

Contact:

Andy Gheorghiu, Food & Water Europe, Fracking Policy Advisor, Food & Water Europe, Tel.: 05631/5069507, Mobil: 0160/2030974, E-Mail: [email protected]

Daniel Hiß, DNR-Frackingexperte, Mobil: 0157/89203007, E-Mail: [email protected]

Ann Kathrin Schneider, BUND Leiterin internationale Klimapolitik, Tel.: 030/27586-468, Mobil: 0151/24087297, E-Mail: [email protected]

Sebastian Scholz, NABU Leiter Energiepolitik und Klimaschutz, Tel: 030/2849841617, Mobil: 0172/4179727, Email: [email protected]

Dr. Cornelia Nicklas, DUH, Leiterin Recht, Mobil: 0162/6344657, E-Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Philip Bedall, ROBIN WOOD, Energiereferent, Mobil: 0160/99783336, E-Mail: [email protected]

Franziska Buch, Umweltinstitut München, Referentin für Energie und Klima, Tel: 089/30774917, E-Mail: [email protected],

Laura Weis, PowerShift, Fachpromotorin für Klima- & Ressourcengerechtigkeit, Tel.: 030/42085295, E-Mail: [email protected]

Facts About LNG: Dismantling Misleading Rhetoric

Categories

Food

In its narrative around the significance of liquified natural gas (LNG) for the European Union, the Commission is repeatedly using a set of controversial arguments. Also many MEPs have adopted the Commission’s wording unquestioned. But what is really behind these concepts?

Learn more in Food & Water Europe’s Factsheet:
Facts About LNG: Dismantling Misleading Rhetoric.

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Fracking and the Food System

Categories

WaterFood

FoodandWaterEuropeFrackingFoodThe oil and gas industry likes to promote fracking as a boon to farmers and rural communities, but the dream often turns into a nightmare. In the United States, fracking has polluted water wells, sickened people and livestock, and reduced available farmland — proving that fracking and a healthy food system are not compatible.

As seen in the United States, the rapid expansion of oil and gas fracking has created significant environmental and public health problems.

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Many of these problems are inherent to the practice and cannot be avoided through regulation, which is why fracking should be banned.

Find out more about why we need to:

  • Move past the false promises of the oil and gas industry
  • Invest in economic development in rural communities that safeguards our food and water
  • Develop policies that allow farmers to make a fair living farming on their land, rather than resorting to leasing their farms for polluting energy production.

Californian Food Products Irrigated With Oil Production Wastewater Might Arrive in Europe

Brussels, 8 August 2016 — A report by Food & Water Europe shows the worrying link between toxic oil production and what we eat and drink. Extreme oil extraction techniques produce millions of liters of toxic wastewater. In California, the oil industry has found a way to get rid of this wastewater by selling it to local public water agencies, which, in turn, sell it to farmers to irrigate crops. The EU is one of the main importers of Californian food products.

In Kern County, in California’s agricultural Central Valley, up to half the water used by farmers in one local water district is “produced”—that is minimally treated and diluted oil waste water— from nearby Chevron operations. Wastewater tested in California contained toxics like carcinogen benzene. Although the wastewater is treated, drilling chemicals can persist. No regulations specifically address the treatment of drilling wastewater in the U.S. state.

“The use of oil wastewater for agriculture is not properly regulated in California, said Frida Kieninger, campaign officer at Food & Water Europe. “We don’t have any data on the extent to which crops absorb the chemicals in the wastewater, or what the human health consequences might be. Producers are not even required to label food exposed to such irrigation. With so little information, Californian regulators are playing Russian Roulette with the safety of consumers”

California is among the top agricultural exporters in the U.S. About 80 percent of almonds consumed globally come from the Golden State and one-third of California’s almond exports are destined for the EU. Wine, pistachios, walnuts and raisins are also exported to EU member states, especially to Germany, Spain and the UK.

“Food imports from California make the issue not only of concern to Americans, but also to consumers globally ”, added Frida Kieninger. “The fact that food irrigated with toxic oil chemicals might end up on our plates and in our stomachs is completely unacceptable. European authorities must take action, especially in the context of the TTIP negotiations.”

Get the Report: Fracking and the Food System

Contact: Frida Kieninger, Campaigns officer, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045 (land), +32 (0) 487 249 905 (mobile), fkieninger(at)fweurope.org

Mention of Fossil Fuels Absent from COP Agreement

Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Europe

Paris and Washington, D.C. – “This agreement coming out of the Paris COP falls far short of what is needed to actually address our climate crisis. The science is clear: We need to take swift and bold action if we are to have any chance of preventing the worst impacts of climate change, yet this agreement does not contain the mandates and funding to make this happen. It doesn’t mention the words ‘oil’, ‘gas’ or ‘fossil fuels’ at all-all of which we must swiftly transition away from to avert climate crisis. There is overwhelming support across the United States and throughout the world for bold action to address our planetary crisis. Communities need to continue organizing and holding their elected officials accountable so that they ultimately deliver the solutions we all need.”

Contact: Geert Decock tel. +32 (0)2 893 10 45, mobile +32 (0)484 629.491, gdecock(at)fweurope.org

Broken Promises, Light Touch Regulation – UK Fracking Policy a Failure

Brussels, 14 December 2015 – The UK Government’s stated goal “to assure the public that the shale industry is being taken forward in a measured and reasonable manner” is a failure, according to a consultation response submitted by Food & Water Europe today.

“The disconnect between the Government’s sunny promises and its actions is glaring, and people can tell when they’re being sold a pup,” said the organisation’s EU Policy Advisor Eve Mitchell. “They break promises, sideline Parliament, and all the while the Government keeps saying, ‘Trust us.'”

The Government is consulting on proposals to restrict fracking from wells “drilled at the surface in specified protected areas”, appearing to portray the impacts of fracking as confined or containable. Yet water contamination, for example, can happen deep underground long distances from the well heads, due in no small part to modelling that is not sophisticated enough to reliably predict what will happen when huge pressures and temperatures are forced into complex natural systems.

“Clearly, National Parks are no place for fracking, but that’s not the point,” said Mitchell. “For a start, new rules mean protected areas can be ringed by wells fracking from below. Damage is inevitable, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Well placement, while important, can’t fix that. People won’t somehow be convinced that fracking can be safe just because the Government says so when they’ve already broken big promises.”

In January, the Cameron-led Government made an unequivocal “public commitment to an outright ban on fracking in National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty”, raising public expectation that a ban would mean a ban. Yet, since then:

  • The Government moved to renege on its promised fracking ban in SSSIs and raised disquiet by going through Committee (avoiding Parliamentary debate) to permit fracking non-vertically under protected areas.
  • The Government announced that local planning authorities must fast-track fracking applications, and the Government can now decide (over the heads of local people) in any appeals companies lodge.
  • The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that Cuadrilla’s controversial application in Lancashire for the UK’s biggest fracking project to date would be the first appeal decided this way. Cuadrilla’s fracking in Lancashire was halted in 2011 by earthquakes the company admits it caused.

Mitchell added, “Far from reassuring the public, this kind of thing reminds everyone that promises can be broken and regulations can be altered if the ‘burden’ on business is deemed too high. This is too important to get wrong, it’s dangerous economically and environmentally, and the Government isn’t even being strict about liability when things go wrong. While the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Governments begin to apply the brakes, England will be left to bear the brunt of the UK Government’s ambitions for fracking. We’ll all feel the effects if we don’t stop it.”

“The dislocation of UK Government policy is clear to the whole world thanks to the COP21 climate meeting in Paris. Back home, we know the only sensible approach to fracking is to ban it. The experience of other countries is shocking, people don’t consent and they’re right to object. Fiddling with the fine print isn’t the answer.”

For more information please contact:

Eve Mitchell, EU Policy Advisor – +44 (0)1381 610 740, [email protected]