the connections between climate, the tar sands, government policy and trade ... The text I refer to insists on the liber
To: Catherine Bearder MEP England SE & FAO: Tim Farron MP From: Dr Henry Adams, Ecological Consultant @henryadamsUK
[email protected]
16 june addition to the 15 june version below: Dear Catherine Bearder,
TTIP, INTA and climate change
I forgot to begin my letter below by thanking you for your hard efforts to protect the important climate legislation in the Fuel Quality Directive. I hope that despite losing that battle until the FQD comes up for review, you can continue your aims for our climate by influencing INTA and TTIP on the climate threats I raise below. ----------------------------------------------------------------Dear Catherine Bearder,
TTIP and climate change: Recommendations for amending the report by the EP’s International Trade Committee (INTA) to remove text that is a threat to our climate As an independent ecological consultant from a scientific research background, and with concerns for the long term future of all of us, our climate and environment, I have advised Tim Farron MP for a number of years on the connections between climate, the tar sands, government policy and trade agreements such as CETA and TTIP. I’m now writing to you, hopefully with Tim Farron’s support, to express my very strong concerns on reading certain text within the recent INTA report of recommendations to MEPs towards a Parliamentary consensus on TTIP. The text I refer to insists on the liberalization of crude oil and fracked gas from the US, and is a big threat to our climate. Furthermore, text expressing concern for the climate is weak and inadequate, and obviously subordinate to the text that threatens our climate. I hope that Tim Farron will agree with me that the Liberal Democrat Party should recommend to ALDE the removal of that text and the insertion of text that protects out climate and our democratic and regulatory means of doing so. Tim does agree with me that TTIP and CETA should not give free trade principles legal primacy over tackling climate change. I would thus be very pleased if you could do your best to: 1. Ensure that the forthcoming amended INTA report does not give “free trade principles” legal primacy over the urgent and vital need for action against climate change, so that no constraints are put on our democratic space to implement policy, actions or regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions. 2. Support amendments to the INTA report to protect the EU Fuel Quality Directive from being ended or constrained from re-instatement of its original function – to be effective in reducing the carbon intensity of transport fuels. (It was diluted to near ineffectiveness in close parallel with TTIP and CETA negotiations). Amendment 22 helps achieve this: (I quote from a Europarl web-page) “Amendment (viii a) to ensure that particularly high greenhouse gas intensive fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) derived from shale gas and crude oil derived from tar sands are banned from the EU market, as not doing so would jeopardise international climate commitments, be at odds with EU climate legislation and objectives, undermine the recommendations on unconventional fuels and infringe the Fuel Quality Directive;” Source: Amendments 14-25 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML%2bAMD%2bA8-2015-0175%2b014-025%2bDOC%2bPDF%2bV0%2f%2fEN
3. Please urge for the deletion of the text in the INTA report which urges TTIP to liberalize export of crude oil and fracked gas from the US. It’s bad enough reading leaked evidence of the EU Commission trade negotiators insisting on this liberalization, but to read that certain influential MEPs want this liberalization too is despicable. They are acting on behalf of fossil fuel industry lobbyists under the misuse of the term ‘energy security’. Here’s the text, and I have emboldened that which needs deleting: “(vii) to retain the objective of dedicating a specific chapter to energy, including industrial raw materials; to ensure that in course of the negotiations the two sides examine ways to facilitate energy exports, so that TTIP would abolish any existing restrictions or impediments of export for fuels, including LNG and crude oil, between the two trading partners, with the aim of creating a competitive, transparent and nondiscriminatory energy market thereby supporting a diversification of energy sources, contributing to security of supply and leading to lower energy prices emphasises that this energy chapter must integrate clear guarantees that the EU's environmental standards and climate action goals must not be undermined; to encourage EU-US cooperation to end fuel tax exemptions for commercial aviation in line with the G-20 commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies;” (1.(d)(vii) on page 14 of INTA report) Note 1: the text I’ve put in bold is totally contradictory to the rest of the text. Note 2: re the term “non-discriminatory”: this is a weasel word: it was misused by tar sands lobbyists to remove figures from the FQD that gave the true difference in lifecycle emissions of tar sands oil compared with conventional oil, using the argument that the difference was “discriminatory”. Note 3: the text wishes for an “energy chapter”, not a “climate and energy chapter”.
The contradictory text is even promoted in the European Parliament News on the INTA report, (under the heading “More access to US energy resources”). Source: ‘TTIP more US market access, reform investment protection, retain EU standards’ [note: “retain energy standards” is a sham, unconvincing in the text] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20150528IPR60432/html/TTIP-more-USmarket-access-reform-investment-protection-retain-EU-standards The weak argument being given for such liberalization of trade in fossil fuels irrespective of their life-cycle carbon emissions (in this case greater if from the US) is “diversification of energy sources” due to “energy security” being under threat from the Russia-Ukraine crisis. This argument, no doubt promoted by fossil fuel industry lobbying, can easily be defeated by evidence-based argument: Firstly, (this applies especially to gas) clean green renewable energy is obviously inherently much more secure than fossil fuel energy, because the sun, wind, waves, currents, do not need to be imported or paid for unlike much of our gas and oil. Furthermore, energy demand reduction is even easier and cheaper still, and has a negative carbon footprint! There is also the bonus of providing many jobs, including local jobs. Self-sufficiency without fossil imports has been shown to be possible by such studies as CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain. One good example is the great scope for reducing gas demand for heating by insulation of buildings. Prof Bradshaw states: "The best way to reduce the energy security risks associated with the UK's growing gas import dependence is to ... promote renewable power generation, improve energy efficiency and reduce overall energy demand." And will ultimately be cheaper too, thus answering the 3 aspects of energy: climate, security, affordability. The Russian threat can thus be seen as an opportunity to stimulate demand reduction and clean renewables. Secondly, promoting the free trade liberalization of fossil fuels would increase their extraction and use, obviously bad for carbon emissions, but particularly so because: Thirdly, US crude oil and LNG would have higher life cycle carbon emissions than existing conventional sources from elsewhere. For example:
US fracked gas has an extra double whammy of added emissions, because not only do we get that from LNG conversion (which we get from gas from the Middle East but not from Norway), but also because the low regulatory standards for fracking in the USA and Canada result in added “fugitive emissions” of methane, which can up the life-cycle emissions from about half that of coal to near to coal. For the US to
export such gas it would need to build new LNG conversion infrastructure – an expensive and long-term investment which would be climate insanity for us to be "locked-in" to. The US refineries, as well as the tar sands industry in Canada (hence a motive for CETA), wish to export tar sands products to Europe. Tar sands oil (bitumen) has a much higher life cycle emissions intensity than conventional oil (+23%, 3 to 5 times higher if we focus on extraction and production emissions before combustion). Studies such as by University College London, have already put the tar sands into the 80% of fossil fuel reserves that must remain in the ground for us to keep within our +2 degrees carbon budget. And then there are the extra emissions from US fracked oil to consider... These impacts are described in more detail by Samuel Lowe of FoE here: https://www.foe.co.uk/blog/why-eu-us-trade-agreement-could-be-bad-climate
There are other items of text in the INTA report which give priority to the exploitation, trade and use of fossil fuels above our more vital need to combat climate change, such as text at F on page 4, which also needs changing. Here's an ALDE link to the report: http://www.marietjeschaake.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-05-28-TTIP-report-A8-0175_2015_EN.pdf Catherine, and especially as a member of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health & Food Safety: I hope you will agree with me that any small gains that TTIP may enable for UK small businesses cannot be justified if at the expense of our climate, and not just our climate… Yours sincerely, Henry Adams Dr Henry Adams (Ecological Consultant) Home phone: 01539 722158 55 Hayclose Crescent, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9 7NT Twitter: www.twitter.com/@henryadamsUK My website: www.dragonfly1.plus.com/topics.html Learn about fracking: www.dragonfly1.plus.com/FRACKING.html Hidden dangers for us all in TTIP and CETA: www.bit.ly/STOP-TTIP-South-Lakes
