Image: CC0.
The European Union has been bigging up its 2050 climate strategy lately. Next week it will set out how the EU can meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement and keep global temperature rises below 1.5oc. The announcement is in response to the latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shows that keeping below 1.5c will require deep and urgent emissions cuts. So can the gas industry, whose primary product is fossil fuels – the very thing driving climate change – really be part of the solution? It certainly hopes so.
The gas industry is currently hyping so-called ‘renewable gas’ and its low carbon potential as their ticket to addressing climate change. But the industry hype does not live up to reality: this newfound enthusiasm for renewable gas is really an attempt to paint the industry green and keep their business model – and their publicly-subsidised infrastructure – intact.
