Brexit was a real shock here in Brussels. For the first time, a member state decided to leave the club. It was really tempting to expect a reaction, a debate about the role of EU policies in this collective failure. But this European Union captured by big companies and ruled by a dogmatic neoliberal elite keeps doing business as usual. What happened in the last few weeks in Greece was another brutal example.
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Global Frackdown
The Global Frackdown 2016, an international day of action to challenge the oil and gas industry and ban fracking worldwide, will take place on October 15, 2016. Around the world, for the fifth year running, participants will be shouting “Ni ici, ni ailleurs” — “not here or anywhere!” — in support of a ban on fracking.
The joint demands are simple and mirror the need for critical change on our planet:
Just one year ago we were arguing about how Spain was still resisting the last wave of water privatization, as a result of austerity policies and debt, seasoned with corruption scandals.
But as a result of the local and regional elections a year ago, the tide changed. As a reaction to the long-term crisis, attacks to public services and corruption in traditional parties, many citizen movements organized to run for the elections, with great success in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Ferrol, Santiago, Cádiz, Coruña and Valencia, among others.
One of the key achievements of those movements was to introduce in the public sphere the debate on how to manage public services, like water. By the end of 2015, 57 percent of the population in Spain received their tap water from a private operator. One of the most worrying consequences is that more than 500,000 families receive water cut off warnings every year, according to data from the Spanish public water companies association.
In part II of my LNG blog, I will give a deeper insight into the blatant irrationality of shipping US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe while calling it an opportunity for energy security, sustainability and flexibility.
I already pointed out the myths around the hype concerning LNG imports to Europe. I explained how LNG is no better and maybe worse for the climate than using coal or oil, and how billions spent for building LNG import infrastructure would be wasted trying to out-bluster Russia, while switching to gas imports from countries with their own questionable records and futures. I pointed out that only around a quarter of the EU’s LNG terminals are currently used, but that the Commission, with a long history of relying on overestimations of gas demand, plans to build more LNG infrastructure.
The European Union is one of the biggest importers of fossil fuels in the world and the second largest importer of natural gas. Norway and Russia are currently the most important exporters of natural gas to the EU. Beyond the political and economic pitfalls of such dependence, climate science is clear that we must keep the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground. The European Commission, however, is holding up liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the answer to the question of how Europe will meet its energy needs. This is short-sighted and wrong.
LNG is super-cooled natural gas, condensed to 1/600th of its volume so that larger amounts can be transported and stored. The “EU strategy for liquefied natural gas and gas storage” was presented by the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and it is quite disturbing.
I decided to examine more closely their mantra of “security of supply”, “flexibility”, “diversification of supply”, “competition” and “sustainability”, and sure enough, if you look at the truth behind the much-praised LNG imports, the strategy unravels. Unfortunately, the majority of Members of the EU Parliament seem to have a largely uncritical stance towards LNG, happily repeating the Commission’s claims.
In the 1950s, the tobacco industry made us believe that smoking “[r]enews and restores bodily energy” and one particular brand’s ads told us “[n]o other cigarette approaches such a degree of health protection and taste satisfaction”. Claims like this would be impossible nowadays, thanks to a successful fight against the cigarette lobby’s misleading campaigns.
But what about statements by the oil and gas industry, calling natural gas a “clean fossil fuel”? We still have a way to go until everyone immediately sees how obviously wrong this statement is, thanks to the continued efforts of oil and gas giants to hide the truth from the concerned public. The fossil fuel industry gave more than $30 million to climate denier think tanks and politicians, telling us that their activities do not pose a threat for the global climate. For years they have earned billions by contributing significantly to global warming while not taking any responsibility for the damage to our environment, economy and society.