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07.12.2020, Brussels – The European Hydrogen Strategy (1), as announced by the European Commission in July, is in fact a ‘Trojan horse’ for the gas industry which managed to secure massive tax payers’ support for investments. That is one of the conclusions of a new investigative report ‘The hydrogen hype: Gas industry fairy tale or climate horror story?’, published today. The report by Brussels based lobby-watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Food & Water Action Europe and Re:Common, is based on an analysis of over 200 documents obtained through freedom of information.

The next few days are packed with significant dates including the first anniversary of the European Green Deal (11 December) and the European Council summit of national leaders (10-11 December) with the EU’s proposed Climate Law on the agenda. Also imminently expected will be the presentation of the Commission’s plans for the new TEN-E regulation, which will be decisive in determining the level of support for gas infrastructure across Europe. Today’s report shows that the EU and national governments’ embrace of ‘hydrogen hype’ risks derailing the Green Deal and Europe’s climate ambitions.

The European Commission’s hydrogen plans are almost identical to the demands of the influential lobby group ‘Hydrogen Europe’, including goals and investments needed for hydrogen both inside and outside the EU, estimated at €430 billion by 2030. The reality is that the EU risks being caught in a fossil gas trap (2).

Belén Balanyá, researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, said: “Today less than 0.1 per cent of hydrogen produced in Europe is from renewable electricity and can thus be called green. More than 90 per cent is produced with climate-destroying fossil fuels. But thanks to a coordinated, massive lobbying campaign the gas industry has secured massive amounts of tax payers’ subsidies. Every policy-maker should acknowledge that the gas industry’s hydrogen hype has nothing to do with tackling the climate emergency, and everything to do with ensuring the core business model of energy giants is seen as relevant – and profitable.”

Our new research finds that in just one year the hydrogen lobby spent almost €60 million influencing European policy-makers, and met with key hydrogen-related EU commissioners and their cabinets more than 13 times a month between December 2019 and September 2020.

The mastermind behind two of the most influential groups pushing the hydrogen hype, Hydrogen Europe and the Hydrogen Council, is PR firm FTI Consulting, recently exposed in the USA (2) for creating fake pro-fossil fuel grassroots organisations on behalf of Big Oil and Gas. Also revolving doors are in full swing: two deputy directors general for energy at the European Commission have ended 30 year careers to go straight into jobs with law firm Baker MacKenzie, which is building up its hydrogen profile.

Frida Kieninger, campaigner at Food & Water Action Europe said: “Our report reveals how big gas pipeline operators like Snam, Gasunie, Enagás and Fluxys are using hydrogen to get support and funds for Europe’s oversized fossil gas infrastructure network. This so called ‘Hydrogen Backbone’, a plan for a network that could include 23,000 km of pipelines by 2040, is a rebranding exercise of the gas industry. Even if Energy Commissioner Simson is not yet clear whether gas projects will be excluded from priority infrastructure-projects under TEN-E, there is a high risk the EU will lock us in further to a fossil fuel future.”

Elena Gerebizza, energy campaigner at Re:Common said: “Conflict of interests are big. The European Commission has put the gas industry in the driving seat of new hydrogen-focused bodies, such as the ‘Clean Hydrogen Alliance’, tasked with drawing up a list of hydrogen projects eligible for public funds. The gas lobby intends to use  hydrogen hype to preserve the current centralised, fossil fuel-based energy model that is owned and controlled by a small handful of Big Energy corporations, including the Italian transmission system operator Snam. Instead the EU should be focussed on real climate solutions which lie in decentralised, electrified, sustainable energy production which would benefit both the climate and citizens.“

ENDS

Please find the report here: https://fweuro.pe/HydrogenHype

For interviews or more information please contact:

Frida Kieninger (French/English/German) [email protected] +32(0)487249905

Belén Balanyá (English/Spanish), [email protected] +31(0)633090386

Elena Gerebizza (English/Italian), [email protected] +39(0)340 6705319

Notes to editors:

1. European Commission, ‘A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe’, 7 July 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/hydrogen_strategy.pdf
2. Europe in the Gas Trap – Investigate Europe (investigate-europe.eu)
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/climate/fti-consulting.html

 

 

Brussels, 23 November, 2020 – The Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) which is a Climate and Clean Air Coalition initiative led by the UN Environment Programme with the European Commission and Environmental Defense Fund, today committed to a new framework for monitoring, reporting and reducing methane emissions.

The partnership includes polluters like Shell, BP or Total among its 62 corporate members. On board are also European’s most important fossil gas transmission system operators (TSOs) who have benefited greatly from the EU mega gas infrastructure build-out so far, including from EU tax money thanks to the Project of Common Interest (PCI) label.

Frida Kieninger, Campaigns Officer at Food & Water Action Europe released the following statement:

“The oil and gas industry has routinely and massively underestimated methane emissions associated with drilling in order to sell the bogus narrative that fracking is a cleaner form of fossil fuel extraction, and that fossil gas can be somehow stripped of these climate-wrecking emissions. We cannot waste time on industry-friendly tracking schemes; what we need to do is ban the import of fracked gas and the important emissions that come with it. We need to transition off fossil fuels. We know that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees or even 2 degrees is not possible if Europe continues its dependence on fossil gas. Purely cosmetic changes, like finding new ways to quantify the harms inflicted on our planet by fossil fuel corporations, are a distraction from the most urgent task: We need to ban fracked gas imports and stop the expansion of dirty fossil gas infrastructure before it’s too late.” 

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A presentation of the framework on the EU Commission website can be found here.

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Contact: Frida Kieninger – [email protected], +32 487 24 99 05

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 the cost/benefit analysis 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 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 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 at the center stage once again. The final EU Parliament 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 Europe

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

Official complaint

Letter of the EU Ombudswoman

09 November 2020 

Washington/Brussels/Dublin – After a long legal battle, Irish activists achieved a major High Court victory on the Shannon LNG terminal project, owned by the US company New Fortress Energy, which would deliver fracked gas to European markets.

Back in 2018, the Irish planning authority An Bord Pleanála extended the 2008 planning permission for another five years without a previous public consultation on the need for LNG development – a decision that was heavily criticized by the environmental community.

Friends of the Irish Environment challenged this decision, and on November 9, the High Court released an order which quashes the existing permission, requiring from New Fortress Energy to restart a completely new and lengthy application process that would also be subject to a public consultation.

The movement against the Shannon project has been building momentum over the past several years. Back in 2019, it was revealed that the Shannon terminal appeared on the European Projects of Common Interest (PCI) list, without any assessment of its climate or sustainability impacts. A complaint put forward by Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Europe, made the EU Ombudsman open an official inquiry into the failure to consider the climate impacts of this new infrastructure.

In June 2020, the major political parties in Ireland voted to enter into a historic three-party coalition with the Green Party, endorsing a new programme for government that would end support for the Shannon LNG project and develop a policy statement to stop the imports for fracked gas altogether.

“The decision of the Irish High Court represents a major blow and maybe the final nail in the coffin for the Irish LNG plans of New Fortress Energy”, says Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Europe. “And fracked gas is facing serious trouble across Europe. In recent weeks, we saw France reject a major US LNG deal on climate grounds, and economic uncertainties have forced the German-Finnish energy major Uniper to completely re-evaluate plans for the LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven, a sought-after location for US fracked gas.”

 

Contact:

Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor for Food & Water Action Europe
Email: [email protected], Phone: +49 160 20 30 974

Food & Water Action Europe is joining over 25 other NGOs in a joint letter to Commission President Von der Leyen, to call on the European Commission to withdraw its proposal on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We demand the European Commission to table a new proposal that is based on supporting farmers in the transition away from industrial agriculture, to a Green Deal-compatible CAP, investing the hundreds of billions available in farming practices that work with nature and within ecological limits, support citizens’ health and wellbeing, and thus safeguard our ability to produce food into the future

This letter is signed by: