SECTION ONE: Fossil Gas

What is Gas? 

Gas is an energy source that is found under the earth’s surface like oil and coal, it can be used to create power which can then be used for a variety of household and industrial processes. It is primarily used to create electricity. 

Gas is a fossil fuel, a natural resource that emits greenhouse gases when extracted and burned. Fossil gas primarily contains methane, a very powerful pollutant in the short-term, as well as carbon dioxide. 

Gas is extracted, produced and transported in multiple forms. Historically, it has been extracted either on-land (onshore drilling) or in the sea (offshore drilling) and then piped through gas pipelines to electricity power plants for consumption. In recent years, a new transportation method has developed and taken precedence, Liquified Natural Gas or LNG. 

LNG allows gas to be carried ‘seamlessly’ across global sea routes - mapped onto imperial trade routes - in liquid form. This means - in theory - no more transnational pipelines. This technology requires several stages. At the point of extraction gas is piped to a liquefaction plant (often at the nearest port) and loaded onto LNG carrier vessels for shipping. At its destination, there is a regasification plant that turns the liquid gas back into ‘gas’. Once re-gasified it is piped to electricity plants for consumption. The Gastivists have included a good explainer on this in a 2019 report found here. 

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Why Fight Fossil Gas? 

Gas has the potential to be even more harmful than oil and coal. It is certainly not a climate solution!

Emissions

• In a 10 year time frame, methane is more than 100 times more potent than CO2. 
• Even if society eliminated CO2 emissions tomorrow but ignored methane, the planet would still warm to the dangerous 1.5ºC- 2ºC threshold within 15 to 35 years (long read here). 
• Weak laws around methane regulation mean that in most countries, companies are not required to accurately report on, and effectively limit, methane leaks in the energy system. Methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are being vastly underreported and are occurring along the entire value chain. 

Health risks and displaced communities 

• Burning fossil gas is not pollution free. The price tag for the EU’s and UK’s reliance on electricity generation from fossil gas is up to 8.7 billion EUR in health costs in 2019 alone, with the largest health burden in Italy, Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands and Spain. 
• These costs stem from direct impacts on health from air pollution by gas combustion, including 2,864 premature deaths, over 15,000 cases of respiratory impacts in adults and  children, over 4,100 hospital admissions and over 5 million days in lost productivity because of illness. All of these impacts are preventable.
• Report by CREA, EMBER; Europe Beyond Coal, Food & Water Action Europe and HEAL here.  

Stranded assets in the future 

• A report by the Global Energy Monitor in April 2021 already found that building all the gas infrastructure (pipelines and LNG terminals) that was back then in pre-construction or construction phases would add 222 billion cubic metres per year (bcm/y) of net gas import capacity into the EU. With EU members planning steep reductions in fossil fuel use as per the Paris Agreement, these expansion plans create an €87 billion stranded asset risk and threaten to lock-in emissions well beyond 2050. Full report here. 

‘Bridge Fuel’ Rhetoric

• Despite conclusive evidence on the dangers of fossil gas, the fuel is being heralded by energy industries and policy-makers alike as a ‘bridge fuel’ to support the European ‘green’ transition. 

• This throws a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry to keep going on their planet-wrecking trajectory, without due accountability for emissions and those they most effect. 
• More fossil gas investment distracts from the task of rapidly decarbonising our energy system, and diverts crucial public funding away from clean alternatives and funnels it into more fossil fuels. 
• In less than a decade, €440 million of EU public funding has been spent on gas projects which have either failed or been put on hold – a huge sunk cost to be borne by EU taxpayers.
• If we are to achieve our global climate goals, half of the world’s remaining gas resources must remain unused. Each cubic metre of gas extracted just drags us further away from our climate goals (and more importantly, a safe and healthy planet). The International Energy Agency and the UN high-level expert group says if we were committed to Net Zero, there can be no new fossil fuel projects. 
• More detail on the ‘bridge fuel’ myth can be found by Oil Change International here. 

Corrupt Vested Interests

Fossil fuel companies have been aware of their impact on people and the planet since the 1950s and have long been using undue political influence to question the legitimacy of climate science. As public consciousness has shifted away from climate denial - a result of decades of pressure from grassroots and civil society groups- fossil fuel companies and their PR machines have shifted towards techno-fixes, dubious capture technologies and greenwashed fossil gas and hydrogen to continue business as usual. 

The fossil fuel industry via its lobby groups enjoys priority access to EU and national decision makers. The fossil fuel lobby keeps the interests of the fossil fuel industry at the core of EU energy policy, undermining democracy and stalling climate action. 

• This easy access is strengthened via the revolving door between polluters and politicians. A ‘revolving door’ denotes a public sector official leaving their role for a corresponding and more lucrative position in the private sector. This creates a conflict of interest whereby the corporate employee has contacts, status and influence in the public realm. Former European Commission advisers, EU ambassadors, MEPs, national MPs, energy and financial ministers, and even members of the United Nations, are among the list of 71 officials who held a public role before they were hired by fossil fuel companies, and vice-versa, since 2015.
• From 2015-2021, Europe biggest fossil fuel lobbies Hydrogen Europe, Eurogas, FuelsEurope, IOGPand CEFIC - representing Shell, BP, Total, Equinor, ENI and Galp- the world’s biggest polluters- met with top level officials from the European Commission 568 times. An average of 1.5 meetings every week over a seven-year period which cost the companies €170 million. 

Lobbying on fossil gas: 

• In 2016 alone the gas industry invested over €100m in lobbying EU decision makers. Since then, gas has been central to EU energy policies despite the well-documented climate effects. 
• The five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, have spent at least €251m (£217m) lobbying the European Union over climate policies since 2010 according to research by CEO and Food and Water Europe. 

Who Wins? 

• The last financial quarter saw profits of the world’s 7 biggest fossil fuel companies soar to £150bn.
• ExxonMobil quadrupled last year’s figures with $17.85bn. Shell beat its previous quarterly high with $11.5bn. Chevron rolled in with $11.62bn in reported profit. This comes in the wake of new analysis last week that calculated $2.8bn a day in pure profit for the oil and gas industry for the last 50 years.

Who Loses?

• Demographically, Black, Indigenous and people of colour are disproportionately experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis: flooded homes, vanishing sources of drinking water, disrupted local economies, extreme heat waves.
• As Europe experiences increasing energy insecurity, its policymakers are looking overseas to find resources to exploit for energy, especially in the MENA region and West Africa. See resources section on green colonialism. 

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Why Can't Europe Break Free from Fossil Gas? 

Europe’s dependency on fossil gas is a consequence of the fossil fuel industry’s capture of EU decision-making. 

1. There is a codependent relationship between the European Commission and the fossil gas lobby​.
2. The same companies who build and operate gas pipelines e.g. France’s GRTgaz Spain’s Enagás, and the UK’s National Grid, were legally incorporated into EU policy-making via their membership of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSO-G)-  a group created by EU legislation. 
3. ENTSO-G's role is to predict market demand for gas. As a network of enormous corporations, there couldn’t be a more audacious conflict of interest. The group consistently overestimates demand in order to encourage EU policymakers to invest in more fossil gas projects, and in turn bolster their projects more. 
4. Between 2013-2020 the EU spent €4.5 billion on 44 new gas infrastructure projects, with 90 per cent of the money going to ENTSO-G members. 
5. Now the same pattern is being reinstated with hydrogen- see the RePowerEU measures- the same companies that meet with commissioners, have direct influence over key legal architectures that inform policy and control the narrative and direction of energy markets and policy decisions. 

Read the full report by Corporate Europe Observatory here. 

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What are the Key EU Policy and Regulations for Fossil Gas & Hydrogen?  

PCI List: 

Projects of Common Interest (PCI) is a category of projects which the European Union has identified as a priority for interconnecting Europe’s energy sources and supplies. These projects are eligible for public funding and fast-track regulation procedures. The newest list contains 30 fossil gas infrastructure projects, and was approved by the European Parliament (in the ITRE committee) in March 2018. In this Excel Sheet you can find arguments against every gas project on the PCI list. An assessment and overview over the PCI projects has been done by people from the Beyond Gas Mailing List and can be found here. 

TEN-E:  

The Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) is a regulation that is focused on linking the energy infrastructure of EU countries. The law also controls where billions of euros in subsidies for energy projects will flow, so its measures inform which energy projects are eligible for public funding. The TEN-E regulation lays down the rules for how PCI projects are identified and implemented. 

REPowerEU:

European Commission's plan to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030. The policy was a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, creating a roadmap to cut the EU’s dependency on Russian gas and find alternative resources. This led to a consequential ‘Dash for Gas’ across Africa. 

Key mandates include a solar strategy, energy savings plan, electricity market design, removal of the requirement for Environmental Impact Assessments for renewable energy projects, and a new external energy strategy that will double its hydrogen import targets to 10 million tonnes per year by 2030. 

The latest vote will take place on November 10th 2022 on the initial European Commission proposal to make the Recovery and Resilience Facility the main funding vehicle of the RePowerEU plan. The proposal fails to address the large investment gap for a just energy transition and climate targets, and might even contribute to increasing it Further, the proposal to waive the “Do No Significant Harm” requirement will lead to an increase of fossil fuel investments under the guise of “guaranteeing the short-term security of supply (more detailed analysis by CAN here) 

EU External Energy Strategy:

The EU External Energy Strategy is part of the REPowerEU Plan. It will replace one fossil fuel dependency with another, locking Europe into reliance on other suppliers for dirty energy needs (LNG, fossil hydrogen), and giving a green light to other countries to expand their fossil fuel infrastructure to meet EU needs. This aspect of RePowerEU also reinforces existing colonial legacies through mass ‘green’ and ‘clean’ energy rollouts in the MENA region, depriving North Africa in particular of its own resources and financing corrupt elites. (EU Factsheet here) 

Resources on REPowerEU critics: 

• Friends of the Earth Europe Criticism: ​​https://friendsoftheearth.eu/news/repowereu-a-foee-analysis/
• WSG and CEPO Hydrogen Research: https://corporateeurope.org/en/dirty-truth-about-EU-hydrogen-push#:~:text=With%20the%20awareness%20that%20hydrogen,hydrogen%20to%20create%20their%20products.
• Equitable recommendations from CAN Europe: https://caneurope.org/repower-for-the-people-new-report-how-eu-wan-off-russial-fossil-gas-2025gy-measures-neglect-the-root-of-the-problem-fossil-fuels/

European Green Deal: 

The European Green Deal is a package of policy initiatives, which aims to set the EU on the path to a green transition, with the ultimate goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. Key WSG critiques - The European Green Deal: 

• completely ignores the fact that the so-called Global North was the main driver of the climate crisis and environmental degradation across the world.

• does not outline how it will reconcile and repair the losses and damages EU countries have caused to ecosystems and communities outside of Europe. 
• ignores the environmental and social impacts of Europe’s drive for renewable energy outside of the continent- read neocolonial extractivism. 
• does not account for the role of ecological degradation in forced migration nor offer solutions for displaced people. 

Resources on green colonialism and European Green New Deal: 

• Climate colonialism and the EU’s Green Deal: ​​https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/23/the-eus-green-deal-could-propagate-climate-colonialism
• Europe’s Green Deal offshores environmental damage to other nations: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02991-1
• What Does the European Green Deal Mean for Africa?: https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/10/18/what-does-european-green-deal-mean-for-africa-pub-85570 
• Equinox Recommendations for justice oriented green deal: https://www.equinox-eu.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Towards-Climate-Justice-Equinox.pdf
• European Green Deal necropolitics: Exploring ‘green’ energy transition, degrowth & infrastructural colonisation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629822000543
• Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region - Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349213/dismantling-green-colonialism/

The Climate Crisis and Climate Justice

Climate context key stats

• The 1.5 °C target: the goal of the Paris Agreement, which calls for countries to take concerted climate action to limit greenhouse gas emissions to “well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius” to pre-industrial levels, in order to limit global warming. 
• In the IEA’s net zero scenario there can be NO NEW oil, gas and coal exploitation/production if we want to give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C. 
• More than half of all CO2 emissions since 1751, were emitted in the last 30 years.  
• 9 million people die from air pollution a year (1 in 6 deaths worldwide)- the largest cause of environmental death on the planet. These deaths disproportionately affect people in the world’s poorest countries and racialised people in wealthier, colonising nations. 

Colonialism and the Climate Crisis

• Those least responsible for the climate emergency are disproportionately impacted. Pakistan for example, is responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse emissions, but was subject to “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination” (OCHR) by the climate crisis exacerbated flooding- with 33 million people currently displaced (eq to. half the population size of the UK).  

• Countries of the Global North, mostly significantly the US, but also post-colonial European nations such as Germany and the UK account for the biggest shares of cumulative emissions. As of 2015, the USA was responsible for 40% of excess global CO₂ emissions. The European Union was responsible for 29%. 
• 90 transnational corporations predominantly headquartered in the Global North are responsible for 63% of cumulative industrial emissions from 1751 to 2010.
• This year the IPCC in its sixth assessment report acknowledged colonialism as a root cause and key driver of the climate crisis. Crucially, the report acknowledges the specific vulnerability of racialised people and (formerly) colonised places to the effects of the climate crisis. 

Key Actors:

The Lobbies: Hydrogen Europe, Eurogas, FuelsEurope, IOGP, CEFI, Gas Infrastructure Europe

The Decision-Makers: EU Commissioners (named here). Useful resource on the EU most lobby friendly commissioners. European MEPs and list of useful MEPs for lobbying by the Gastivists here. 

The Fossil Gas Companies: The Seven Sisters (European and US corporations like ExxonMobil, BP or Eni) and the Gulf National Oil Companies such as Aramco or QatarEnergy, Mubadala Energy. 

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Useful terms: 

Loss and Damage (L&D): includes effects related to extreme weather events but also slow onset events, such as sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and desertification. Loss and Damage is not currently a liability compensation despite its 2015  inclusion into the UNFCCC Paris Agreement (article 8)  but rather refers to measures around cooperation and support. It is yet to be seen as to whether nations most affected by the climate crisis will receive adequate financial support to cope with Loss and Damage.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: the intergovernmental body of the United Nations created to produce comprehensive assessments on our state of knowledge of the climate emergency and its effects and to provide policymakers with up-to-date scientific data. It is composed of 195 member states. The sixth assessment report is due to be completed with a synthesis report in March 2023. 

Climate Reparations: measures taken by states to redress the systemic legacies of colonialism. Colonised nations have less resources to face the impacts of the climate crisis they were least responsible for. Climate reparations can include financial support packages (as advised at COP27). Climate reparations are often used synonymously with L&D by more radical groups, because the terms more clearly allocates the historical responsibility of emission and environmental damage to colonising nations. 

Mitigation: actions to limit the climate crisis and its effects. Core pillars of mitigation refer to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonising energy systems and innovating emission free technologies for vital systems such as transport and agriculture. 

Adaptation: altering behaviours and systems that contribute to the climate emergency. They can include local measures but also internationalist-structural ones. Decolonising economies is a form of radical adaptation to the climate crisis. 

Greenwashing: where a company uses advertising and public messaging to appear more climate friendly and environmentally sustainable than it really is. It’s dangerous because it damages public debate around the climate crisis and stifles incentive for genuinely renewable or sustainable solutions. 

Carbon Credits: a licence to keep polluting via the promise of carbon offset. The premise is that a polluting company, individual or government can pay for carbon offsets such as tree-planting that extract emission from the atmosphere. The reality is that carbon credit economies incentivise the commodification of nature and allow corporations to dispossess vulnerable, indigenous communities of their land. It’s another form of greenwashed colonialism. 

Net Zero: net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. Net zero doesn’t mean zero emissions; it allows national and international actors to produce climate pledges based on unproven sequestration tactics and techno-fix solutions (most known of them being Carbon Capture and Storage). 

Just Transition: Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. 

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Further Resources & Links: 

• https://takeclimateaction.uk/resources/race-and-climate-reading-list
• https://climatereparations.uk/#find-out-more
• https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/
• https://corporateeurope.org/en/climate-and-energy/2017/10/great-gas-lock
• https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/
• Nature, Displacement and the Anthropocene in Palestine: A View From the Already Extinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNnU-8cgOPA 
• https://caneurope.org/climate-action/
• https://www.tni.org/en/agrarian-environmental-justice
• https://corporateeurope.org/en/2022/05/hydrogen-north-africa-neocolonial-resource-grab
• https://www.foodandwatereurope.org/fracking/
• https://www.gastivists.org/vision/
• https://friendsoftheearth.eu/publication/can-the-climate-afford-europes-gas-addiction/ 
• https://friendsoftheearth.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/natural_gas_and_climate_change_anderson_broderick_october2017.pdf 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KtkiPv5BNg 
• https://twitter.com/foeeurope/status/1534127158934884352?s=20&t=QxtyFHldK3tFRyWixVRlyg 
• https://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/2020-12/hydrogen-report-web-final_3.pdf 
• https://friendsoftheearth.eu/publication/big-oil-and-gas-buying-influence-in-brussels/ 

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