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Frackopoly Tour: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Ireland

By Andy Gheorghiu

In many ways, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) looms as the environmental issue of our time. It touches every aspect of our lives—the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the health of our communities—as it ominously threatens our global climate. It pits the largest corporate giants—international energy and financial corporations—against people and the environment in a long-term struggle for survival.

Fracking has, through the construction of a network of thousands of wells, a significant impact on communities and culturally or environmentally sensitive zones in England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales, among other areas in Europe. Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland have already recognized the need to act against this corporate assault and have prepared the first steps towards fracking bans. Sadly, up until now, the UK government has done little to confront the devastating environmental and public health impacts of fracking.

In a historic vote at the beginning of this year, Ireland opted in favour of a law that will make the green island the world’s first country to fully divest from fossil fuels. On Europe Day, 9 May 2017, the committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment passed the bill banning oil and gas extraction through fracking in Ireland, paving the way for a final vote later this year. The Scottish Government is currently holding a public consultation until the end of May and hopes are that the overwhelming evidence of the negative impacts caused by fracking will also finally lead to a ban in Scotland. People can still support the “Take Action to Ban Fracking Now!” campaign by FoE Scotland.

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Another Step Towards a Global Ban on Fracking: Argentina Wins First Victory

By Frida Kieninger

The vibrant movement to ban fracking worldwide can celebrate another victory: On 25 April, the Chamber of Deputies in the Argentinian province Entre Ríos unanimously approved a law prohibiting fracking. Unconventional exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons, including fracking, will be forbidden following the new law, making Entre Ríos the first Argentinian province to ban the risky practice.

Behind this remarkable victory, there is a long, stony path that different organizations and social movements walked together, working hard across the country, notably in Río Negro, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires and Neuquén. The decision in Entre Ríos should also be a wake-up call for regions beyond the Argentinian border like Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay and Chile. There have been many successful initiatives in different Latin American countries: for example, several Brazilian cities banned fracking and five Departments in Uruguay prohibited the dangerous technique.

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The Food & Water Europe Team Grows!

By Tina Callebaut

I recently started an internship of six months at Food & Water Europe and I am the newest addition to the small international Brussels-based team. During my first week I got to know the team a little better, I was given a tour around the ecologically renovated office building Mundo-B (which we share with 60 other NGOs) and I was introduced to the many issues Food & Water Europe is working and campaigning on. There was (and still is) a lot of information to take in, not to mention the many acronyms involved: PCI’s, RES, CEF, SGC, TAP, ECI, etc.… But I can only be very grateful for the warm welcome I’ve received in this small Spanish-Austrian-German working family.

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Spain, A Country Full of Manure

 

By David Sánchez

Over the last few decades, small- and medium-scale farms raising livestock have given way to factory farms that confine thousands of cows, pigs and chickens in tightly packed facilities. Uncontrolled agribusiness power and misguided public policies have pressed livestock producers to become significantly larger and to adopt more intensive practices, which come with a host of environmental and public health impacts that are borne by consumers and communities.

Spain and its pork meat industry is a clear example, as we expose in a new report released today. Spain is the third largest exporter of pork after China and the United States and has the largest pig population in the EU—over 28 million animals. Production and exports are growing as a result of high industry consolidation and low production costs. But that means that the industry is getting concentrated in just a few hands, with the number of farms diminishing rapidly and farmers getting squeezed in the process. Between 1999 and 2013, 180,000 pig farms disappeared in the country, with a massive impact in rural communities.

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Blog: Celts Oppose Fracking While Dragon Ships Bring U.S. Fracked Gas

By Andy Gheorghiu

In a historic vote at the beginning of this year, Ireland opted in favour of a law that will make the green island the world’s first country to fully divest from fossil fuels. This goes even further than the decision by the 2015 decision of Norwegian parliament to divest the country’s sovereign wealth fund from dozens of coal-related investments.

And it’s not the only clear movement of the Celtic Tiger towards a much needed post-fossil future. On October 27, a bill calling for a fracking ban passed its first hurdle in the Irish House of Representatives (Dáil Éireann). In the meantime, Irish officials have also decided to undertake a public consultation on the provisions of this bill together with the Joint Research Programme on the Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on the Environment and Human Health, led by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency.

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How the EU Is Supporting European Dependence on Gas

By Frida Kieninger

On 17 February, the EU Commission published the outcome of the call for funding under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), a financing tool with the aim of supporting “the development of high performing, sustainable and efficiently interconnected trans-European networks in the fields of transport, energy and digital services.” We had a deeper look into the funding instrument’s impact on energy infrastructure and found that the CEF fails to ensure efficient, and even more so, sustainable interconnections.

Since its creation in 2014, the CEF has provided €1billion to support gas projects, while electricity projects received only around €532million. These numbers are contrary to the declared CEF objectives of allocating the majority of its funds to electricity projects, and the EU-Commission’s own perceived need for Europe to invest further €140billion in electricity and “only” €70billion in gas infrastructure

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