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Brussels, May 14, 2013 – The hype surrounding shale gas in Europe is founded in the American shale gas boom, where “cheap and abundant” energy appears to provide energy security. However, according to Food and Water Europe and Friends of the Earth Europe, a closer look at the US boom reveals an economic system based on shaky foundations, that side-lines health and the environment, and is reliant on unsustainably low prices driven by speculation and industry overestimates.

Experts invited to speak today at “Behind the hype: the economics of shale gas in Europe” questioned the longer-term contribution of shale gas to America’s energy mix and warned against the dangers of replicating the U.S. example in Europe. They will also illustrate that the current price of shale gas in the U.S. is artificially low and well below production costs.

The Canadian geoscientist David Hughes, following the analysis of historical production from 65,000 oil and gas wells, concluded that the average production figures for shale gas wells are already falling, as “sweets spots” in mature shale basins have been drilled off. Given the steep decline curves of shale gas wells, a “drilling treadmill”, requiring an annual investment of U.S. $42 billion per year, will be needed just to keep shale gas production flat[1].

“A hard look at the historical production from American shale gas wells shows that unconventional gas cannot provide a long-lasting – never mind environmentally sustainable – answer to European low-carbon energy needs”, said Food & Water Europe Policy Officer Geert De Cock. “Europe cannot drill its way to decarbonisation by 2050”.

The Energy Watch Group expert Werner Zittel demonstrated that the contribution of shale gas to reduce gas imports and improve the European Union’s overall energy mix will be negligible, particularly when viewed against steep declines in European conventional gas production. Population density, shortage of drilling equipment, acute shortage of qualified personnel, stronger environmental rules and lack of public acceptability cause structural barriers for the large-scale development of shale gas in Europe[2]. 

Antoine Simon, shale gas campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe said: “The US shale gas boom is based on unsustainably low prices and wishful thinking. If repeated in Europe, shale gas development will be hindered by significantly higher costs, at a pace unlikely to impact upon gas prices. European governments should support the transition to renewable energy sources and to increase energy efficiency instead of promoting expensive, unsustainable and dirty fossil fuels”.

Food & Water Europe and Friends of the Earth Europe maintain that until the social, environmental, social and health impacts are adequately addressed, all Member States should suspend ongoing activities, abrogate permits, and place bans on new projects, whether exploration or exploitation. Europe must not be swept up in wishful thinking and replace genuine solutions like renewable energy and energy savings with the shale gas myth.

• View the presentation by J. David Hughes (Post Carbon Institute).
• View the presentation by Werner Zittel (Energy Watch Group).
• Read a statement from Food & Water Europe about the event.
• Read the minutes from the event.

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For more information please contact:

Geert De Cock, Policy officer, Food & Water Europe

Tel. +32 (0)2 893 10 45, mobile +32 (0)484 629.491, email: gdecock(at)fweurope.org

Antoine Simon, Shale gas campaigner, Friends of the Earth Europe

Tel. +32 (0)2 893 10 18, mobile +32 (0)486 685 664, email: antoine.simon(at)foeeurope.org

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Food & Water Europe works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.

Friends of the Earth Europe is the largest grassroots environmental network in Europe, uniting more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups. We are the European arm of Friends of the Earth International which unites 76 national member organisations, some 5,000 local activist groups, and over two million supporters around the world.

New report gives first comprehensive analysis of U.S. State Department’s promotion of the biotech seed industry’s global agenda

Washington, D.C., and Brussels—Today Food & Water Watch and its European project Food & Water Europe released the first comprehensive analysis of the U.S. government’s strategy, tactics and foreign policy objectives to promote pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide. Biotech Ambassadors: How the U.S. State Department Promotes the Seed Industry’s Global Agenda examines more than 900 State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 and details how the U.S. State Department lobbies foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operates a rigorous public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology and challenges commonsense biotechnology safeguards and rules — including opposing genetically engineered (GE) food labeling laws.

“The U.S. Department of State is selling seeds instead of democracy,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the book Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, which looks at corporations’ growing influence over food policy, launching in Europe this week. “This report provides a chilling snapshot of how a handful of giant biotechnology companies are unduly influencing U.S. foreign policy and undermining our diplomatic efforts to promote security, international development and transparency worldwide. This report is a call to action for Americans because public policy should not be for sale to the highest bidder.”

“An overwhelming number of farmers in the developing world reject biotech crops as a path to sustainable agricultural development or food sovereignty,” said Ben Burkett, President of the National Family Farm Coalition, a U.S. member of the international peasant farmer organization, La Via Campesina. “The biotech agriculture model using costly seeds and agrichemicals forces farmers onto a debt treadmill that is neither economically nor environmentally viable.”

The State Department’s efforts impose the policy objectives of the largest biotech seed companies on often skeptical or resistant governments and their citizens, and exemplifies thinly veiled corporate diplomacy. Of the 926 diplomatic cables analyzed, 7 percent mention specific biotech companies and 6 percent mention Monsanto specifically. The State Department promoted the commercialization of specific seeds, acted to quash public criticism of particular companies and facilitated negotiations between foreign governments and seed companies like Monsanto over issues like patents and intellectual property. This corporate diplomacy was nearly twice as common as diplomatic efforts on food aid, which was mentioned in only 4 percent of the cables.

“It’s not surprising that Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow want to maintain and expand their control of the $15 billion global biotech seed market, but it’s appalling that the State Department is complicit in supporting their goals despite public and government opposition in several countries,” said Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association. “American taxpayer’s money should not be spent advancing the goals of a few giant biotech companies.”

Food & Water Watch’s report delineates the State Department’s charm offensive to promote biotech crops and pro-biotech policies, often in close collaboration with the biotech seed companies. The report provides a detailed account of the State Department’s participation at nearly 170 agricultural biotech conferences and events, sponsorship or coordination of 17 junkets for journalists and opinion-makers, and other ways that the agency uses its diplomatic prestige and bully pulpit to pressure foreign governments to adopt pro-biotechnology policies and products.

“This report provides yet another distressing example of how Monsanto and its ilk have a stranglehold over the global food supply and how it does everything it can — including influence U.S. diplomacy — to silence people who only want to make informed choices about the food they feed their families,” said Pamm Larry, a leader of the U.S. national grassroots movement to label GE foods and the initial instigator of Proposition 37, a California ballot initiative to label genetically engineered foods that was narrowly defeated at the polls last November. “As we fight for the mandatory labeling of GE foods here in the U.S., it’s important that we also shed light on the ways that the pro-GE seed agenda is being forced upon other countries — because knowledge is power.”

The report closely examines the State Department’s role in promoting biotech seeds in the developing world, where many nations have not approved GE crops. Despite the high cost of biotech seeds and the associated agrichemicals, the State Department has been pressuring countries to adopt policies that would give the biotech seed companies a beachhead in the developing world. The report examines the State Department’s role in lobbying the governments of Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria to pass pro-biotech laws.

“The State Department should not be flexing its diplomatic muscle to impose biotech crops on the developing world,” said Hauter. “Today, the U.S. government is secretly negotiating major trade deals with Europe and the countries of the Pacific Rim that would force skeptical and unwilling countries to accept biotech imports, commercialize biotech crops and prevent the labeling of GE foods. This madness must stop; the U.S. government should not be a shill for the largest biotech seed companies.”

The report concludes with the recommendation that all countries should have the right to establish their own acceptance of biotech crops and foods free from U.S. interference, and suggests how the State Department should approach agricultural development to put the interests of other countries before the interests of the biotech seed companies.

EU version

Download the US report

Contact:

U.S.: Anna Ghosh, 415-293-9905, aghosh(at)fwwatch(dot)org
Europe: Eve Mitchell, +44 (0)1381 610 740, emitchell(at)fweurope.org

New Consumer Reports Poll: More than 80 Percent Don’t Know or Don’t Think Antibiotics Used to Treat Disease in Apple, Pears; More than Half Think Apples, Pears Treated with Antibiotics Should Not Have “Organic” Label

Portland, Ore.—Consumers Union, the policy arm of Consumer Reports, Food & Water Watch, and the Center for Food Safety are urging the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to discontinue the use of antibiotics in organic apple and pear production, citing the potential undermining of the integrity of the organic label and threats to public health and consumer expectations. The NOSB—which meets in Portland, Oregon, this week—will vote on a petition to extend the use of oxytetracyline beyond the existing expiration date of October 21, 2014.

New data from a poll commissioned by Consumer Reports confirms that most consumers do not know that the USDA organic label can be found on foods produced with antibiotics and don’t believe they should be allowed to carry that label if antibiotics were used. Specifically:

• When asked whether antibiotics are used to treat disease in apple and pear trees, two-thirds (68 percent) of people said they don’t know, 17 percent said they don’t think they are, and 15 percent said that antibiotics are used.

• When told that apple and pear trees can be sprayed with antibiotics to treat disease and then asked whether fruit from these trees should be allowed to have an “organic” label, more than half—54 percent—said they don’t think they should be labeled as organic. Only 11 percent of thought they should be labeled as organic, and slightly more than one-third (35 percent) answered that they don’t know if they should be labeled organic.

Some organic apple and pear producers use oxytetracycline and another antibiotic, streptomycin, to manage a disease called fire blight. Antibiotics are not allowed in other types of organic food, including production of organic livestock.

The groups submitted over 35,000 public comments to the NOSB in advance of their meeting, raising concerns about consumer expectations and the mounting evidence that the public health threat posed by antibiotic resistant bacteria make it critical that all uses of antibiotics in food production be minimized.

The use of antibiotics is allowed for organic apple and pear production through a petition process to the NOSB, which has already extended the deadlines for this loophole to close several times since the organic label was implemented in 2002. Despite these extensions, there has been limited help for apple and pear growers to find alternative treatments for fire blight, although some alternatives do exist.

For example, U.S. farmers do not apply antibiotics to the organic apples and pears they sell to Europe, where the use of antibiotics is not allowed. The groups urge the USDA to work with the organic apple and pear industry to incentivize viable alternatives for producers and uphold the integrity of the organic label by rejecting the petition to extend the expiration date for oxytetracycline.

*The Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted an online survey via Google Consumer Surveys. For each question, 910 interviews were completed among adult Internet users. Interviewing took place over March 29-April 3, 2013.

Consumer Reports® is an expert, independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves. We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports®, ConsumerReports.org® and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our permission. Consumer Reports will take all steps open to it to prevent commercial use of its materials, its name, or the name of Consumer Reports®.

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.

Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture.  CFS maintains offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon.  More information can be found at www.centerforfoodsafety.org.

Contacts:

Naomi Starkman, CU, [email protected], 917.539.3924

Anna Ghosh, F&WW, [email protected], 415.293.9905

Abigail Seiler, CFS, [email protected], 202.679.3370

BRUSSELS – As a conversation starter on the EU’s 2030 climate and energy policies, the European Commission attempts to reconcile polar opposites: The Green Paper highlights the EU as “a frontrunner in clean and more energy-efficient technologies, products and services”, while simultaneously claiming “a need to enable the future exploitation of indigenous oil and gas resources, both conventional and unconventional […]”. The Green Paper fails to explain how these two elements could co-exist. Furthermore, the European Commission buys into the current hype about shale gas in in Europe, by linking low energy prices and reduced imports to unconventional fossil fuels. Such wishful thinking completely ignores the reality that the geological knowledge in Europe about shale is in its infancy. With only a couple of dozen exploratory wells drilled across the EU, reserving a significant role for shale gas in Europe is premature.

“The Commission’s consultation asks the wrong question of how the EU can best exploit unconventional resources. Before answering how, the Commission should looked past the hype about shale gas and asked the question if shale gas could contribute to the EU’s 2030 climate and energy objectives”, said Food & Water Europe policy officer Geert De Cock. “Looking at the amount of drilling and investment that would be required to deliver a significant portion of the EU’s energy mix from shale and the absence of an adequate regulatory framework, the EU will quickly realize that it cannot frack its way to decarbonisation”.

Food & Water Europe holds that European governments are putting the cart before the horse, by allowing exploration and extraction to go ahead without a detailed analysis of the risk and negative impacts of large-scale shale gas activities. Until all the climate, environmental and health impacts are adequately addressed, we believe that no further shale gas and other unconventional gas activities should proceed. We call on all Member States to suspend all ongoing activities, to abrogate permits, and to place a ban on any new projects, whether exploration or exploitation.