The EU is already constructing, or planning to construct, €87 billion worth of fossil gas infrastructure as the expansion of LNG terminals and gas pipelines continues, despite the bloc's goal of cutting emissions in half by 2030, according to a new report from San Francisco-based NGO Global Energy Monitor.
Pipeline from Dürnrohr to Sankt Pölten, Austria. Source: Wikimedia
Pipeline from Dürnrohr to Sankt Pölten, Austria. Source: Wikimedia
The European Commission has said that fossil gas consumption must be cut by 36% by 2030. However, the planned investments would cater for an increase in capacity of 35% from current levels.
The report warned that if the planned investments go ahead, the EU faces a stark choice of either embroiling itself in a more polluting future or wasting billions on infrastructure projects, such as pipelines, which have a 50-year lifespan.
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"The EU’s ambitious climate targets require gas consumption to drop sharply by 2030 and continue dropping through 2050. So the EU is likely to overshoot its ambitious climate targets –or to wind up spending billions of euros on gas infrastructure that isn’t needed," said the report's lead author Mason Inman, who is oil and gas programme director at Global Energy Monitor.
Methane - or natural gas - is often considered to be the transition energy source in the EU for the transition from coal and other fossil fuels to renewables. However, when burned, methane still produces CO2, and leaks of the gas cause considerably more short-term damage to the atmosphere than CO2.
European Climate Foundation CEO Laurence Tubiana, said: "With the EU Green Deal and the 55% target, natural gas demand in Europe needs to start declining today, otherwise we risk wasting billions of private and public funding on stranded assets."
"The fossil fuel era has passed – we must invest crucial public resources into reliable and cheap renewable energy that is ready today."
The new report builds on an analysis published by energy consultancy Artelys last year, which found that there is already enough standing infrastructure in the EU to ensure the security of supply.
The Artelys report also found that hydrogen, despite its importance in the process of decarbonisation in hard-to-electrify sectors, would still only require targeted, limited investments of around €15-25 billion.
Nonetheless, there is continued support for fossil gas in many EU member states and with politicians, many of whom continue with calls for new "hydrogen-ready" infrastructure.
"When we look to the climate urgency and we look to the carbon budgets, which are left globally and also in the EU, basically there is no space for something which the gas industry would call an ‘energy transition’ – a smooth transition taking several decades," said Luxembourg’s energy minister, Claude Turmes.
He added that renewables - in particular offshore wind - are a strong alternative to fossil gas for many central and eastern European countries, but he said that there needs to be a definitive breakaway from the fossil fuel lobby, which requires the right political will.
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"It’s not an issue of what is possible. It’s an issue of who is in the driving seat and where are the political majorities to drive solution."
While the gas industry continues its lobbying for the construction of new pipelines, arguing that they can be used for future hydrogen transportation. However, critics have pointed out that these pipelines can only carry as much as 10% hydrogen without requiring significant retrofitting.
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