Blog Categories: Europe

European Water Movement – Food & Water Europe – Wasser in Bürgerhand 

The European Commission once again disappoints citizens that supported the Initiative for the Right to Water

Brussels, 31st January 2018. Today European water advocates said the leaked proposal for a new Drinking Water Directive is disappointing and doesn’t meet the expectations of the citizens and organisations that supported the first successful European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) on the right to water. The review of this directive was framed by the Commission as their only answer to the ECI. Five years later, this draft doesn’t meet any of the demands supported by nearly two million people.

Elisabetta Cangelosi, member of the European Water Movement said, “Five years waiting for an answer and the result couldn’t be more disappointing. Although we welcome the timid attempt of the Commission to include provisions about universal access to water and the emphasis on minorities and vulnerable groups, this text has nothing to do with the human right to water recognized by the United Nations and demanded by citizens”.

The Human Right to Water as defined by the United Nations implies that water and sanitation must be physically accessible, safe, acceptable, sufficient and affordable. The draft Drinking Water Directive addressed just the first three aspects.

David Sánchez, director at Food & Water Europe added, “The proposal from the Commission simply ignores the main challenge for the Human Right to Water in the European context, affordability. With thousands of families having their water cut-off in Europe in recent years for not being able to pay the bills, guaranteeing access is not enough. We need political courage from the Commission to challenge private companies that make profit out of water management to really implement this human right in Europe”.

The proposal also includes provisions to promote free access to water in public spaces, including public buildings, but it falls short as this provision is not specific about it being tap water.

Jutta Schütz, member of Wasser in Bürgerhand added, “The Commission vague wording allows the interpretation that installing vending machines with bottled water would be enough. We need to close this gap so the Drinking Water Directive is coherent with the efforts to get rid of plastics at the European level such as the Plastics Strategy or the Circular Economy Package, and to challenge this unacceptable, environmentally-damaging industry”.

Contacts

Elisabetta Cangelosi, European Water Movement, +32 488 08 00 21 (mobile), [email protected]

David Sánchez, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 485 842 604 (mobile), dsanchez(at)fweurope.org

Jutta Schütz, Wasser in Bürgerhand, +49 (0) 157 390 808 39 (mobile), [email protected]

The European Water Movement is an open, inclusive and pluralistic network whose goal is to reinforce the recognition of water as a commons and as a fundamental universal right. http://europeanwater.org/

 

Explosion at Austrian Baumgarten Gas Hub and Shutdown of Forties Pipeline System Shows Europe’s Vulnerability

Brussels/Washington – An explosion yesterday forced operator Gas Connect Austria to shut down a major European gas hub at Baumgarten, taking one life and injuring 21 others. Italy depends on gas deliveries via Baumgarten and declared a state of emergency – although gas supplies are expected to be guaranteed by storage for the time being. Nonetheless, Italian gas price almost doubled to Eur45/MWh following the blast.

The fatal accident in Austria follows Monday’s shutdown of the key North Sea Forties Pipeline System (FPS) after the discovery of a widening crack. UK gas prices rose immediately and the price for Brent crude oil jumped over $65/barrel – its highest level in more than two years. The FPS was recently bought by Ineos, and feeds the company’s Grangemouth, Scotland petrochemical plant. Ineos transports fracked gas liquids from the United States to produce plastic.

Both incidents feed new fears about the energy security supply of Europe and rising gas prices in the middle of a winter that has just begun.

In response, Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued the following statement:

“The explosion at Europe’s gas hub in Austria and the shutdown of the Forties Pipeline System in the North Sea shows Europe’s true vulnerability – it’s strong and systemic fossil fuel addiction. The only way to gain its independence and to guarantee access to abundant clean energy for Europe’s citizens is to swiftly move off of fossil fuels and finally put major investment and public money into 100% renewables and energy efficiency measures.

“But instead of identifying centralized, big fossil fuel infrastructure as a security problem, EU policy makers are going all out for gas, with around 90 new gas infrastructure projects planned. Some of this gas is being exported from fracked communities in the United States. This is taking both continents in the wrong direction at a time when climate chaos lingers at our doorsteps.”

Despite Commission promise, new list of energy infrastructure ‘projects of common interest’ prioritises climate-wrecking fossil gas

Categories

Food

350.org, Corporate Europe Observatory, Counter Balance, PowerShift, Gastivists, Justice and Environment, Food & Water Europe

BRUSSELS —Today, the European Commission presented its third “Projects of Common Interest” (PCI) list composed of energy infrastructure projects. It contains around 90 gas infrastructure projects. This is even more than the list of 2015 and directly contradicts Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete’s claim that the new PCI list was moving away from gas.[*]

“Supporting more climate-killing gas infrastructure is definitely not in the common interest of Europeans, and even less in the interest of communities worldwide that are already heavily impacted by climate change. Providing EU tax-payer money for many of these “priority” projects is a step into the past and a big step away from the Paris Agreement. It also further closes the short gap of time we still have to combat climate change” says Frida Kieninger from Food & Water Europe.

Projects on the PCI list are given the highest national priority and benefit from accelerated permits and streamlined environmental impact assessments. Many of them receive granting from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – EU tax payer’s money.

“We can clearly see the gas industry’s fingerprints on the design of this years’ PCI list. Unfortunately, in EU institutions as well as in Member States departments, the gas industry lobby is still setting the agenda. The PCI process itself has been led by the gas industry through the central role of industry lobby group ENTSO-G [the European Transmission System Operators for Gas] in deciding which projects are eligible or needed”, says Pascoe Sabido from Corporate Europe Observatory. “It is obvious that ENTSO-G will never work towards its own abolishment, so involving it so closely in the PCI process undermines much needed climate action.”

The European Parliament now has two months to object to the list, otherwise it will be automatically approved. The Parliament has no ability to vote on single projects or on gas PCIs alone, and must decide on the PCI list as a whole.

Besides a number of electricity and some oil and smart grid projects, the 90 gas projects mean that for the third time in a row, the Commission has not managed to reduce the amount of fossil fuel projects to even close to 50, as stipulated by the TEN-E regulation.[*]

However, the European Commission claims it is supporting fewer gas projects through the PCI list, because it has clustered many together to count them as single projects. “Clustering projects to artificially lower their number is nothing but a cheap accounting trick and changes nothing about the fact that the PCI list still supports far too much gas infrastructure”, says J&E Board Member Birgit Schmidhuber.

The current list not only contains a host of mega-pipelines such as the $45bn Southern Gas Corridor pipeline, the Baltic Pipe and the “Eastring”. Meanwhile, demand has been declining for over a decade. Also on the list is a number of new LNG terminals to import costly, climate damaging liquefied gas from all over the globe. Terminals in Sweden, Ireland, Croatia and Poland get EU support while the EU-wide use of such terminals was at less than one fifth of their capacities in the past.

So far, gas PCIs eligible for funding received twice as much money – over €1bn – as electricity projects, despite the CEF regulation stipulates that electricity PCIs should receive the majority of CEF funding. Over €3bn of the €4.7bn foreseen for gas and electricity PCIs from 2014-2020 still remains unspent. It is still unclear whether the trend of favouring gas project funding will be turned for the benefit of electricity projects in the next three years.

 

End notes

[*] Cañete told Ends Europe in November 2017 “In the [PCI] list we will publish at the end of November, you will see there is a big shift from gas to electricity” (behind a paywall)
[*] TEN-E regulation

Ineos’ Court Injunction Won’t Stop UK Anti-Fracking Movement

Categories

Food

Washington/Brussels/London—Today, the High Court of the United Kingdom upheld an injunction sought by petrochemical giant Ineos intended to stifle protest against the company’s plans to frack sites in the UK.

In response, Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued the following statement:

“This decision undermines our basic democratic rights to protest and defend our communities.

“Ineos is facing sustained protests for a reason. The company has amassed an atrocious environmental record across Europe, from chemical leaks and substantial pollutant releases to fires and explosions. If this company is being allowed to frack the UK, more pollution and more accidents are likely to follow.”

“The public knows the dangers fracking poses to our clean air and water, and that’s why activists in England are taking bold action to protect their communities against these threats. Ineos would like to stifle this movement, and unfortunately this High Court injunction has given the company a potentially powerful tool to threaten those advocating for a healthy climate and a livable world. If Ineos thinks a court injunction will stop the movement to protect our water, climate and communities from fracking, they are in for a surprise.“

 

The Awful Environmental Record of Ineos Disqualifies Fracking Ambitions

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: November 21, 2017 6:01 AM

New Report Takes Hard Look at Chemical Giant’s Trail of Pollution

WASHINGTON, DC/BRUSSELS—Facilities owned by the massive chemical corporation Ineos are responsible for scores of serious health and safety violations across the globe, a troubling record that should move United Kingdom leaders to slam the brakes on the company’s push to begin fracking in the United Kingdom. Ineos has never drilled a commercial gas or oil well, and its indifferent safety record in chemical plants justifies blocking its foray into fracking.

A new issue brief from Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe examines Ineos plants in the UK, and across Europe and the United States. The company’s 71 facilities in 18 countries are responsible for a vast array of accidents, chemical leaks, fires and explosions, and substantial air and climate pollution.

“From towering chemical fires in Germany to toxic air pollution in Scotland and plastic pellets littering our oceans, Ineos’s safety record is appalling,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The company is also a climate disaster waiting to happen—benefiting from fracking in the U.S. while planning to bring the dangerous practice to the United Kingdom. This company’s plans have been met with a passionate, committed grassroots movement, and political leaders are beginning to understand that the right response to fracking is to stop it before it starts.”

The company’s Grangemouth facility in Scotland is the largest industrial site in in the country, and the hub for Ineos’s global fracking ambitions. It can manufacture one million tons of chemicals per year, and has repeatedly received low environmental ratings by Scottish regulators. The plant is Scotland’s single largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

The story is similar at other Ineos facilities, which have amassed a record of fires, explosions, and chemical leaks. The Ineos facility in Cologe, Germany was the site of a massive fire in 2008, and there have been a series of high profile accidents elsewhere—a major oil leak in Norway, a number of chemical leaks in France, long-running controversies over chemical dumping in Italy, and the release of toxic gas that resulted in the hospitalization of workers in Belgium.

Over a quarter of Ineos’s facilities are located in the United States, where the company’s awful record continues. The report shows that between 2014 and 2017, 12 of the company’s 14 plants in one EPA database were failing to comply with a major environmental regulation for at least one three-month period.

Already a chemical industry giant, Ineos has been expanding into fossil fuel infrastructure and drilling, with a plan to bring hydraulic fracturing or fracking to the United Kingdom.

From beginning to end, Ineos’s business model represents grave threats to clean air and water. The company relies on fracked hydrocarbons from Pennsylvania and Ohio, which delivers immediate negative impacts in the communities near drilling sites. These dangerously explosive materials must be transported via major pipelines, like the Mariner East 2 under construction across Pennsylvania, drilling for which has already caused dozens of spills and several cases of water contamination. The materials are shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the plastics and chemical manufacturing sites, which contribute further environmental threats to the air, water and public health.

“The Ineos vision for the future is a disaster for clean air and water, and a disaster for the climate as well,” said Hauter. “At a time when the entire world must be moving off fossil fuels, Ineos represents a series of dangerous gambles that will take us backwards.”

See the report.

Contact:

Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor, Food & Water Europe, agheorghiu[at]fweurope.org

Ineos’ Chequered Environmental Track Record in Europe

Categories

Fossil Fuels

DOWNLOAD PDF VIEW ON SCRIBD

The petrochemical company Ineos is transforming into a dominant UK fossil fuel firm with oil and gas extraction, storage, processing and pipeline assets.

Since its 1998 inception, Ineos has rapidly assembled a sprawling corporate empire by snapping up chemical factories and companies.

But it also has garnered a chequered environmental record in its aggressive climb to become one of the world’s largest chemical conglomerates.

The petrochemical industry, plastics production and fracking are innately risky to the environment and public health. Methane leaks from oil and gas infra- structure are a leading contributor to global warming, and in the United States the fracking industry has been responsible for thousands of spills and accidents that have contaminated groundwater resources. Ineos is pushing to frack the UK, but its troubled environmental and safety record at its chemical manufacturing plants makes the company a risky bet for UK communities and the environment. The Ineos chemical plants have released millions of tonnes of the green- house gas carbon dioxide as well as other hazardous pollutants.

Find out the dangers and what should happen instead in our report.