Timeline:
On Monday September 30th, 2019, the Irish Department of
Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, through an AIE request by
email to a local resident revealed that the next High-level Decision Making
Group meeting to approve the candidate PCI list would take place in Brussels on
Friday October 4th, 2019. This meeting is still not advertised on the DG Energy
Website.
On Tuesday October 1st, 2019, the Irish Department of
Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, through a further AIE request by
email to a local resident revealed that the Irish authorities were aware of the next High-level Decision Making
Group meeting of October 4th in Brussels since as far back as September 16th, 2019.
On Wednesday September 25th, 2019 the
Irish Parliamentary Joint Committee on Climate Action agreed to have a meeting
on Wednesday, 9th
October 2019 to discuss ‘the impact of fracked gas on the climate and its
impact on Irelands climate goals should we facilitate the importation of fracked
gas from North America into Ireland’. The Committee agreed to get live
testimonies from the following people:
- Professor Robert
Howarth, explaining his
latest peer-reviewed scientific study which found that shale-gas production in
North America may have contributed to approximately one-third of the total
increased methane emissions from all sources globally over the past decade;
- Doctor Kathy Nolan explaining the
consequences of fracking on the health of people in the USA, given that
increased demand for imports of fracked gas from America into Ireland and
Europe would lead to an increase in Fracking in America and lead to even more
Americans getting poisoned from fracking and
- Environmental Activists explaining how
PCI Accreditation would set the framework for development consent in Ireland,
because the US Fracked Gas Import
project in Ireland by Shannon LNG would have to be built and funded by public
money due to its status of 'overriding public interest'.
This would happen without any high-level Strategic Environmental Assessment
(SEA) to assess reasonable alternatives, thereby preventing the country from
having an Energy Mix which would not include the Filthy Fossil Fuel which is
Fracked gas.
On Thursday September 26th, 2019, a motion was submitted to the
Irish Parliament (the Dail), co-signed by 44 Members of Parliament (TDs) from a
variety of political parties:
" to remove any project from the
proposed list of Projects of Common Interest that could support the building of
an LNG facility in Ireland that will act as a gateway for fracked gas entering
the Irish energy mix; and
to build support in Europe to prioritise sustainability criteria
in the assessment of candidate PCI projects, that will address fossil fuel lock
in and the long-term impacts of fracked gas in the European energy mix, given
the expected change in climatic conditions."
On Friday September 27th 2019, the eNGO 'Friends of the Irish Environment'
informed, via legal letter, Irish Minister Richard Bruton (and the European
Commisioner, Ms Ditte Juul-Joergensen,
Director General, DG ENER, Ms Jane Amilhat, Acting Head of Unit, ENER,
Caoimhin Smith, Energy Security Division, DCCAE, and Mr Paul Byrne, Commission
for Regulation of Utilities) that it was requesting a Strategic Environmental
Assessment of the approval by Ireland of the candidate PCI projects on its
territory. If this was not undertaken before a decision to approve the Irish
candidate PCI projects going onto the 4th PCI list was made in the High-level meeting
in Brussels, it reserved its right to challenge this decision in the courts.
On Monday September 30th, 2019 the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of
Energy Regulators (ACER), published its opinion completed on Wednesday September 25th, 2019, on the
draft list of projects of common interest 2019.
It found that all the proposed Irish Gas projects are "projects which did not prove that their
overall benefits outweigh costs". This is a specific criteria under
Article 4(1)(b) which should lead to automatic disqualification of all Irish
Projects on the PCI list.
On Tuesday October 1st, 2019, Infrastrata
announced a non-binding agreement to purchase the Belfast Shipyards Harland and
Wolfe for an LNG terminal - "for
the Company's Islandmagee Gas Storage Project and proposed FSRU project". This was not how Infrastrata presented its
project on May 7th and 8th in Brussels and shows the complete disregard for
public scrutiny and high-level assessment of its plans.
Click
Here to Download full Request to the European Commission to postpone
high-level gas PCI regional group meeting of Friday October 4th, 2019
in Brussels
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