Liquefied Natural Gas is not an option to address the energy and climate crisis

Liquefied Natural Gas is not an option to address the energy and climate crisis

• Friends of the Earth and Ecologists in Action present the report 'LNG: to climate chaos through liquid means'. The study presents 10 reasons why this fossil fuel is not an option.
• The Diosa Maat sailboat sails to the Sagunto regasification plant, a plant that has increased its LNG imports by almost 50 % since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), the liquid version of fossil gas, is largely responsible for the increase in the cost of gas since autumn 2021. This fossil fuel, transportable by sea and land for those routes for which there are no gas pipelines , is in the spotlight especially after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. Europe is considering how to end Europe's dependence on Russian fossil fuels. One of the bets is to increase LNG imports instead of focusing decisively on reducing gas consumption, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The report 'LNG: to climate chaos through the liquid route', by Food and Water Watch and Friends of the Earth Europe, has been translated and adapted to the state context by Friends of the Earth and Ecologists in Action. It aims to raise the alarm about the deployment of this gas in Europe as an attempt to address the issue of energy security. It sets out ten key arguments that highlight the many problems that LNG entails.

In the Spanish State, LNG imports accounted for 77 % of the total in May 2022, while in that same month of 2021 they accounted for less than 50 %. It is also evident that energy companies operating in Spain continue to import LNG from Russia, but the main supplier is the United States. The LNG from the United States is mostly produced by hydraulic fracturing or fracking. This technique is prohibited in many countries, including the Spanish State, due to its great environmental and social impacts on the communities near the facilities.

“Betting on solutions based on fossil fuels and that also promote practices such as fracking undermines climate justice in general and the human rights of people in particular,” declared Cristina Alonso, head of the Climate Justice area of Friends of the Earth. . “Policymakers continue to ignore their historical responsibility for the climate crisis, instead putting the financial profits of large companies first”

For her part, Marina Gros, responsible for the 'The truth about gas' campaign of Ecologistas en Acción, has stated: “It is alarming that LNG imports are only increasing instead of activating emergency policies to encourage the reduction of consumption and remove the most vulnerable population from gas dependence.” Gros concluded: “LNG is an expensive and dangerous fossil fuel, which also fuels North-South inequalities, affects people's health and impacts the climate.”

To accompany the publication of the report, the Diosa Maat sailboat sets sail from Valencia in its summer campaign 'Tide against gas', which aims to make visible the oversized gas infrastructure in the Spanish State and the need to quickly reduce dependence on natural gas in the territory.

This morning, the crew headed to the Sagunto regasification plant, one of the six active regasification plants in Spain. Owned by the Saggas company, since the beginning of the war it has received 50 % more downloads than in the same period in 2021. The Diosa Maat sailboat will also visit the Naturgy cycle thermal power plant with 1,200 MW of power. A sample of the oversized gas infrastructure of the Spanish State, the result of the legacy of the speculative bubble of the first decade of the 2000s.