Fossil fuel companies are exploiting Europe’s energy price crisis to weaken EU methane rules designed to reduce powerful greenhouse gas emissions. Evidence shows their claims are unfounded.
Esther Bollendorff, fossil free program manager, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe; and Brandon Locke, associate director, global policy, methane pollution prevention, Clean Air Task Force (CATF)
Every year, 200 billion cubic meters of fossil gas are wasted through methane leaks and flaring across the global fossil fuel system. That is equivalent to around twice the annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports of Qatar. Cutting methane would recover energy that has already been extracted, while preventing it from entering the atmosphere and accelerating the climate crisis.
Every year, 200 billion cubic meters of fossil gas are wasted through methane leaks and flaring across the global fossil fuel system. That is equivalent to around twice the annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports of Qatar.
At a time of unprecedented energy price crisis, tackling methane offers one of the fastest and most cost-effective opportunities available to strengthen Europe’s energy security. Yet just as implementation begins, the regulation’s full potential risks going untapped.
A lobbying offensive dressed up as energy security
Since the regulation was negotiated, fossil fuel companies have mounted an intensive lobbying campaign to weaken it — claiming the rules are unworkable, using the EU’s deregulation agenda to reopen the legislation and, more recently, exploiting the energy price crisis to renew their attacks.
Pressures have been amplified by transatlantic lobbying. Through undisclosed meetings with the European Commission and direct political interference, fossil fuel companies from the United States backed by the Trump administration have repeatedly pushed the EU to revise the regulation in order to ease the flow of their LNG at a moment when EU dependence on American gas has reached an unprecedented high.
The arguments these vested interests use misrepresent the impact of methane rules on the EU’s energy system, and the evidence shows they are unfounded.
