The road to 2050 should be fossil gas pipelines free

(EurActiv, 2 Mar 2020) All scenarios prepared by transmission grid operators feature very high shares of gas in Europe’s future energy mix. Does that make any sense at all? No, says Wendel Trio.

Wendel Trio is Director of Climate Action Network (C AN) Europe, an environmental NGO.

The transmission grid operators still assume, in a recently published draft scenario, that the EU’s gas demand by mid of the century will be roughly two thirds higher than the demand that the European Commission considers for reaching the 1.5°C objective. With this, anyone can easily justify all kinds of fossil gas projects that will not bring us to Paris targets as quickly as we need.

The EU is allegedly planning its journey to an energy system with net-zero emissions, but it is allowing fossil gas to be part of the trip, as EU legislation charges the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) and for Electricity (ENTSO-E) to draw the Ten Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP).

Among others, this masterplan of European energy infrastructure identifies the need for the privileged Projects of Common Interest (PCIs). Recently, Members of the European Parliament were asked to endorse 55 fossil gas projects, as part of the fourth PCI list. Getting the PCI label means gas project developers can expect several hundreds of millions of EU subsidies.

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EurActiv, 2 Mar 2020: The road to 2050 should be fossil gas pipelines free