Shell Lobbied to Thwart EU Renewable Energy Targets: Guardian
Published on Monday, April 27, 2015
by Common Dreams
Shell Lobbied to Thwart EU Renewable Energy Targets: Guardian
Documents obtained by British paper show energy company lobbied EU executive body head to pursue gas-friendly climate pact
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
A climate change pact reached by EU leaders last year followed several years of successful lobbying by oil giant Shell "to undermine European renewable energy targets," the Guardian has reported.
The agreement for 2030 goals, which include a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases and 27 percent renewable energy in the EU as a whole, was reached in October. It was denounced by environmental organizations who charged that it fell far short of what is necessary to address the climate crisis.
But it was touted by then-European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who called the pact "very good news for our fight against climate change" and said that "No player in the world is as ambitious as the EU."
According to documents obtained by the British daily, Barroso was the target of Shell's lobbying efforts, which focused on the expansion of gas as a greenhouse gas reducing measure rather than renewables. Shell urged him
to scrap the bloc’s existing formula for linking carbon-cutting goals with binding renewable energy laws.
Shell argued that a market-led strategy of gas expansion would save Europe €500bn (£358bn) in its transition to a low carbon energy system, compared to an approach centred on renewables. “Gas is good for Europe, and Europe is good at gas,” the firm’s upstream executive director, Malcolm Brinded wrote in a five-page letter to Barroso.
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http://commondreams.org/news/2015/04/27/shell-lobbied-thwart-eu-renewable-energy-targets-guardian