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MEPs Approve Methane Report – Highlighting Dangers of Fracking and Need to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Categories

Fossil Fuels

Today, the European Parliament adopted its own-initiative report on an EU methane strategy, which calls for regulatory measures and clear targets to reduce methane emissions across all sectors in line with the Paris Agreement. But the report falls short in several key areas.

While MEPs highlight in the report that “fossil fuels have no long-term role in the Union’s energy mix”, it is missing a clear deadline for a phase-out. Considering that the EU imports more than 80% of the oil and gas it consumes, the upcoming rules have to cover the whole supply chain in both the energy and petrochemical sectors. MEPs backed measures across the supply chain, but failed to stress that we have to implement those measures immediately

“Decision-makers must ensure that methane mitigation is not abused as an opportunity for greenwashing practices by oil and gas companies. Reducing methane emissions can bring real climate benefits in the short-term, but it must happen within a clear time frame to phase-out fossil gas, consisting mainly of methane, by 2035,” said Enrico Donda, gas campaigner at Food & Water Action Europe.

Another concern arises on who would pay for tackling emissions. The position of the Parliament affirms that investments undertaken by infrastructure operators “should be recognised within the scope of regulated activities”. Once activities are recognised as “regulated” their costs can be passed on via gas tariffs to consumers. The risk is therefore that an increase in gas tariffs will lead to an additional burden to low-income households.

“With raging gas prices across the EU exacerbating energy precarity, measures to reduce methane must fully reflect the polluter pays principle. It would be cynical towards consumers to subsidise activities to fix and detect leaks while fossil fuel companies can sell more gas and wrongly claim it is ‘sustainable’ or ‘clean’”, continued Enrico Donda.    

The Parliament report takes a sufficiently bold approach on other occasions. MEPs reiterate that the EU should not authorize “new hydraulic fracturing operations in the EU and to halt all existing operations” (1). It also rightfully calls production and transport of liquefied fossil gas (LNG) “extremely inefficient”.

By the end of this year, the EU Commission will present legislative proposals on measures to tackle methane emissions. These will include mandatory monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), leak detection and repair (LDAR) programmes and measures on routine venting and flaring (RVF).

The EU Parliament position on methane raises key points that the Commission should consider when dealing with this climate-wrecking greenhouse gas, such as a clear reference to cooperate with Member States to phase-out all fossil fuels, a halt to fracking and fossil fuel infrastructure expansion and the link to the petrochemical sector. 

Notes to the editor:

  1. An increasing amount of fossil gas is imported into Europe from the US, a majority of which is extracted via hydraulic fracturing. In Q2 2021, all LNG imports amounted to 24 bcm, with the US being the biggest supplier of LNG to Europe. The European Commission gas market report is available at 

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/default/files/quarterly_report_on_european_gas_markets_q2_2021_final.pdf

 

  • The text adopted today by the EU Parliament is an own initiative report by MEP Maria Spyraki (EPP, Greece) – please note that for the section on agriculture  some changes have been proposed by MEPs 
  • Agriculture and energy sectors are the major sources of human-driven methane emissions, accounting respectively to almost 50% and 19% of total EU emissions, according to the EU Commission. Note that these percentages may not be accurate since there is no constant monitoring and the EU Commission relies on outdated data. The EU Commission proposal expected by the end of this year in the context of the second wave of the fit-for-55 package will focus on energy-related methane emissions. 
  • Methane (CH4) is a short-lived greenhouse gas, which has an atmospheric lifetime of about 12 years. It is 86 times more climate polluting than CO2 over a 20-year period. 

Proposed gas projects for EU support would emit as much carbon as Germany’s coal fleet each year

Categories

Fossil Fuels

 

FOOD & WATER ACTION EUROPE, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH EUROPE, GLOBAL WITNESS

 

26 July 2021, Brussels – Three climate NGOs have filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman over the European Commission’s repeated failure to properly assess the climate impact of fossil gas projects seeking political and financial support from the EU. This means gas infrastructure projects with significant impacts on accelerating global warming stand to benefit from favoured treatment.

Food & Water Action Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe and Global Witness say that the Commission’s revised methodology for deciding which fossil gas pipelines and terminals will earn the status of “projects of common interest” (PCI) does not include a credible sustainability assessment. PCI status means a project is treated as high priority, enjoys fast-tracked planning and can receive significant public funding.

This updated methodology, published last month, means that even if a gas project fails the sustainability test, it will not automatically be removed from the PCI list. Moreover, the analysis does not take into account methane leakage from infrastructure but methane leakage from Europe’s fossil fuel infrastructure accounts for some 2% of the EU’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions. The methodology only considers carbon savings when compared to coal, which artificially inflates the alleged savings. The NGOs are also critical of a lack of transparency over project assessment (as previously noted by the Ombudsman), making it impossible to know how or why a project was approved.

Analysis by Global Witness has shown just how catastrophic it would be for the planet; additional emissions from proposed gas projects would total at least 213 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year – equivalent to the emissions of Germany’s fleet of coal plants in 2018.

Frida Kieninger, Senior Campaigner with Food & Water Europe said: 

“With climate catastrophe knocking at Europe’s doors and flooding our towns, it is appalling that once again the Commission is ignoring science and proposing a farcical process overlooking the climate impacts of the fossil gas projects it will support.”

“This means dozens of climate-damaging, not to mention unnecessary, gas pipelines and terminals could receive favoured treatment from the EU. Instead of pumping more public cash into fossil fuels, the EU should be fighting to phase them out to protect our climate.”

The complaint comes after the EU Ombudsman already censured the EU Commission for a “suboptimal” sustainability process for assessing gas projects that failed to take into account climate risks. The Commission promised it would take several steps to improve its criteria for assessing PCI projects and the Ombudsman indicated that this should include both carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

The European Commission is expected to publish its final draft fifth list of PCI projects in November, which will then go to MEPs and EU governments for approval or rejection. A Global Witness analysis of the previous four PCI lists showed that at least €440 million of EU taxpayer money has been wasted on projects that either have or are likely to fail.

Notes to editor:

[1] Link to sustainability methodology: https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/3ba59f7e-2e01-46d0-9683-a72b39b6decf/library/8248eebd-2590-44b1-b1c8-01bcb01ea7af?p=1&n=10&sort=modified_DESC

[2] For all calculations, citations, and methodologies used to determine carbon emissions, see Global Witness, EU Proposed 5th PCI List – Possible CO2 Emissions, 25 June 2021, available at https://gwitness.org/5th_PCIList_Carbon_Emissions.

[3] European Ombudsman (10 February 2020). Decision in case 1991/2019/KR on the European Commission’s action concerning sustainability assessment for gas projects on the current List of Projects of Common Interest. Available at: https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/135095

[4] Global Witness (2021) EU companies burn fossil gas and taxpayer cash

Available at: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-gas/eu-companies-burn-fossil-gas-and-taxpayer-cash/

[5] Methane leakage quantities and proportions https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-union-greenhouse-gas-inventory-2019

EU Ombudswoman Acknowledges Commission’s Climate Failures

Heavily subsidized fossil gas projects lack real  climate impacts analysis

Brussels, 19 November 2020

In a final decision published today, the EU Ombudswoman confirmed that since 2013 the EU Commission has failed to conduct adequate climate/sustainability assessments for the fossil gas projects on the Projects of Common Interest (PCI) list.

Initially the EU Commission ignored any climate impacts of PCI projects and in 2019 the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) was tasked with including a sustainability assessment in its cost/benefit analysis that they had been doing since 2013. Unfortunately, ENTSOG’s proposed approach was based on the assumption that all gas projects would automatically show only positive benefits towards CO2 mitigation, erroneously claiming a shift from coal to gas would be good for the climate, ignoring negative impacts, such as increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

In February, the EU Ombudswoman opened an official inquiry into the failure of the European Commission to consider the climate impacts of subsidized projects on the PCI list, some of which are directly linked to imported fracked gas from the United States. The inquiry is a direct result of an official complaint filed with the Ombudsman on October 29 of last year by Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Europe, an environmental NGO based in Brussels.

Despite the increasing pressure on the European Commission to avoid additional fossil fuel infrastructure, it adopted the Delegated Act establishing the fourth list of PCI projects – ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence about the negative climate impacts of fossil gas, and instead relying on this flawed analysis from ENTSOG to justify more fossil fuel infrastructure.

With today’s decision the EU Ombudswoman confirms core points of the complaint, stating that “the sustainability of gas projects that were included on the fourth PCI list (and previous lists) has not been sufficiently taken into account,” and that “the Ombudsman finds it regrettable that the Commission did not attempt at an earlier stage to improve the available data and the analytical methodologies applied, so that a ranking of candidate gas PCIs based on their sustainability would have been possible”.

In its assessment, the Ombudswoman also notes that the EU’s objectives concerning climate change targets and sustainability have gained urgency with the increasing awareness of the accelerating climate crisis and concludes: “As the Commission is working on improving the methodology and data collection for assessing the sustainability of candidate gas projects for the PCI-list, the European Ombudsman considers that no further inquiries are justified at this point.”

The work on PCIs is coordinated by regional groups, dedicated to each type of energy infrastructure. The 5th PCI process already kicked-off with a meeting of TEN-E cross-regional groups on electricity, gas, smart grids and CO2 thematic areas on November 17, 2020  – with ENTSOG entering centre stage again.. The final EU Parliament’s vote on the next PCI list is expected to happen by the End of 2021.

In response to this decision, the complainant Andy Gheorghiu states:

“The Ombudswoman clearly confirms the lack of crucial climate assessments of highly subsidized fossil fuel projects for all PCI lists so far.The Commission must walk the talk and truly deliver on real climate analysis in the next list. Unfortunately, the Commission still plans to work with ENTSOG, whose biased assessment is at the very heart of the problem. A more rigorous and independent sustainability test is necessary for future PCI’s.”

***

For more information contact:

Andy Gheorghiu, Policy advisor, Food & Water Action Europe

Tel. +49 160 20 30 974, email [email protected]

Official complaint

Letter of the EU Ombudswoman

Assessment/Conclusion of the EU Ombudswoman

Global Environmental Activists Ask UN to Support Worldwide Fracking Ban

Group represents frontline communities from Europe, Mexico and Pennsylvania, along with researchers and international climate campaigners

New York, NY — A group of environmental activists, public health professionals and campaigners who are fighting fracking, climate change, petrochemicals and plastic pollution met with the United Nations to discuss the harms and threats of gas drilling and petrochemical expansion in their communities, and the necessity of stopping further extraction to combat the global climate crisis.

Activists from Mexico, Ireland and Germany were joined by frontline residents and campaigners from Pennsylvania and New York in the meeting with Satya Tripathi, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of New York Office at UN Environment.

The meeting was the result of an open letter sent to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres last September. That letter — organized by Food & Water Action, its European arm Food & Water Europe and the Breathe Project in Pittsburgh — was signed by nearly 460 grassroots groups, faith communities, celebrities, activists and organizations, including actors Mark Ruffalo, Emma Thompson and Amber Heard, authors and activists Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, fashion icon Vivienne Westwood and her son Joe Corré as well as iconic children’s singer Raffi.

As the groups wrote to Secretary General Guterres, the “continued production, trade and use of fracked hydrocarbons for energy, petrochemicals and plastics torpedoes our global efforts to tackle climate change and violates basic human rights.”

The groups appealed to the United Nations to consider the critical findings it has issued over the years. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have expressed concern that fracking will make it all but impossible to achieve emissions reductions targets outlined by the Paris Agreement, as well as the impacts of fossil fuel drilling on human rights. As early as 2012, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a “Global Alert” on fracking, concluding that it may have adverse environmental impacts under any circumstances.

All speakers will appear at an evening event, “Global Impacts of Fracking: From Pennsylvania to Europe and Back,” at the CUNY School of Law in Long Island City on the evening following the UN meeting. They will be joined by Rolling Stone journalist Justin Nobel, who will discuss his bombshell article on fracking and radioactivity.

Quotes:

“Fracking has been linked to radioactive brine, higher rates of cancer and nervous, immune, and cardiovascular system problems,” highlights Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Concerned Health Professionals of New York together with Dr. Ned Ketyer, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania. “The gathered scientific evidence shows that women, industry workers, communities of color, and the poor are especially vulnerable to environmental injustices and harm to health and safety from fracking.”

“The petrochemical industry has teamed up with the fracking industry to benefit from cheap fracked ethane to produce more unneeded and environmentally destructive plastic,” says Michele Fetting, Breathe Project together with impacted local activist Lois Bjornson. “Families are suffering from the effects of contaminated air and water and there is increasing fear as fracking activities and the petrochemical build-out show no sign of slowing down.”

The promise of our current president to stop fracking in Mexico has not been met. All legislation favors the industry in disregard of the rights of communities in extraction areas, underlines Claudia Campero, Alianza Mexicana contra el Fracking, Mexico.

Eddie Mitchell, Love Letirim, Ireland, adds: “Now that we stopped fracking in Ireland, we’re also forced to fight the fracking industry from infiltrating our energy markets through import pipelines and LNG terminals – undermining all our efforts to move forward towards a clean energy future.”

“After over four years of evidence gathering, the Permanent Peoples Tribunal judges on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change recommended in 2019 that fracking be banned and that the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment be asked to investigate the violations of the rights of humans and nature by the Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction industry,” said Scott Edwards and Andy Gheorghiu, Food & Water Action US and EU. “It’s time for the UN take action and finally recommend a global ban on fracking to tackle one of the worst crises in human history.”

Talk Fracking founder Joe Corré says: “Countries like Britain are employing smoke and mirrors strategies to continue fracking while pretending they’re not. The United Nations must impose a global fracking ban for the sake of humanity. Fracking simply puts another log on the fire of the Climate emergency. It’s no bridging fuel. It’s fossil fuel’s last stand.”

Fashion icon Dame Vivienne Westwood adds: “If we’re serious about saving the planet from Climate devastation, then Fracking – or any other form of extreme energy extraction under a different name – like Acidisation – must be totally outlawed”.

EU Ombudsman Opens Inquiry Into Lack of Climate Assessment for Fossil Gas Projects

Activists push for scrutiny of subsidized fossil gas Projects of Common Interest list

Brussels—On Wednesday, 12 February, the European Parliament voted in favour of the 4th list of so-called Projects of Common Interest (PCI) list, which includes 55 fossil gas projects, some of which are directly linked to imported fracked gas from the United States. But the EU’s handling of this list is coming under increased scrutiny, with the EU Ombudsman opening an official inquiry into the failure to consider the climate impacts of this new infrastructure.

The inquiry is a direct result of an official complaint filed with the Ombudsman on October 29 of last year by Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Europe, an environmental NGO based in Brussels. Despite the increasing pressure on the European Commission to avoid additional fossil fuel infrastructure, it adopted the Delegated Act establishing the fourth list of PCI projects – ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence about the negative climate impacts of fossil gas.

In addition to being bad policy, the 4th PCI list is non-compliant with EU Law and the Paris Agreement. At the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) meeting on October 17, 2019, Deputy Director of DG Energy Klaus-Dieter Borchardt admitted that the sustainability review mandate for PCI list-proposed projects, including the much needed climate/environmental assessment, has been ignored for over 6 years, calling into question the legality of every list to date, including the one just approved.

While the decision of the EU Ombudsman is highly welcome, the timing of its announcement raised concerns.

“The European Commission was notified about the EU Ombudsman’s inquiry. just two days before the vote of the European Parliament on the PCI list, and the public found out only after the vote”, said Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Europe. “Knowing about the Ombudsman’s decision to open up an inquiry into whether or not the PCIlist is non-compliant with EU Law and the climate targets would have influenced the decision of many MEPs to reject this list and return it to sender for review.”

Climate activists are calling on the EU Commission not to grant any actual funding to any of the fossil fuel projects on the current list before a proper comprehensive climate assessment has been conducted.

For more information contact:

Andy Gheorghiu, Policy advisor, Food & Water Europe
Tel. +49 160 20 30 974, email [email protected]

Official complaint

Letter of the EU Ombudsman

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT OKAYS NEW ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE INCLUDING 55 FOSSIL FUEL PROJECTS

Categories

Food

But movement growing for end to gas

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH EUROPE, FOOD & WATER EUROPE

Brussels/Strasbourg, 12 February 2020 – A quarter of MEPs today voted in favour of a resolution to reject the EU’s proposed list of priority energy infrastructure, including 55 fossil gas projects, though this was insufficient to veto the list. [1]

The vote nevertheless shows growing concern over the European Commission’s continued support for gas, despite its plans for a zero carbon Europe, say green groups. [2]

Frida Kieninger from Food & Water Europe said:
“A majority of MEPs today failed to keep their promises on the climate emergency – as the planet burns they are standing by and fanning the flames with yet more fossil fuels for the EU. But the movement is growing to save Europe from being shackled to decades more climate-killing gas.

“The Greens, GUE, and a number of Social Democrats deserve the credit today for standing up and recognising that gas is a harmful fossil fuel that should not be supported by the EU.”

But most MEPs, particularly from the European Peoples’ Party, together with many Social Democrat and Renew MEPs, refused to make use of the Parliament’s power to object to the European Commission’s 4th Projects of Common Interest (PCI) list, enabling 55 fossil fuel projects to become eligible for EU funding.

Despite backing the list, the Renew group has written to the EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson seeking a revision of this 4th PCI list. Vice President Timmermans has promised that only projects consistent with the Green Deal will receive funding. [3]

Colin Roche, climate justice coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe said:
“This climate hypocrisy has to end. Following unprecedented disasters like Australia’s wildfires, history will look unkindly on those who today backed building more fossil fuel pipelines and terminals. A European Green Deal is not possible with more fossil fuels, and Europe needs to go fossil free fast.

“The Commission should now clarify that gas projects are incompatible with the European Green Deal and place a moratorium on funding of any of the gas projects with EU taxpayers’ money.”

The EU Commission will next consider which of the projects approved today will receive EU funding from the Connecting Europe Facility. NGOs demand a full stop to all fossil fuel subsidies. The European Commission had previously admitted that the list had not undergone either a climate or sustainability assessment.[4]

Ya’ara Peretz of Green Course, an Israeli NGO fighting the EastMed pipeline, said:
“It’s sad and disappointing to realize that many EU politicians are choosing the side of fossil fuel companies, and are pushing expensive and wasteful fossil gas projects such as the East Med pipeline.” 

***
For more information, contact:

Colin Roche, climate justice coordinator, Friends of the Earth Europe, [email protected]  (+32) (0)489 598984

Frida Kieninger, campaign officer, Food & Water Europe, [email protected], tel (+32) (0) 2893 1045, mobile (+32) (0)487 249 905

Robbie Blake, Communications team, Friends of the Earth Europe, [email protected], (+32) (0)2 893 1010

***

[1] Motion https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-9-2020-0091_EN.html

169 MEPs voted in favour of a rejection of the 4th PCI list, 443 against, with 36 abstentions.

[2] Over 300,000 EU citizens signed petitions and emailed MEPs expressing their concern about EU support for gas in advance of the vote.

[3] https://twitter.com/TimmermansEU/status/1227301598315061249

[4] The PCI list process is laid out in the TEN-E Regulation https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32013R0347. This regulation dates from 2013 and does not consider climate commitments such as the Paris Agreement, the EU’s 2030 decarbonisation targets and the European Green Deal. The TEN-E Regulation does not require any climate impact assessment of PCI projects. The European Commission has pledged to review the TEN-E legislation by the end of 2020. However, any potential revision of the legislation will take place after the selection process for the next fifth PCI list has begun.