Emergency action required on LNG

Message Text:

Dear (each target will get a separate, personalised email),

I am writing to you because I am deeply concerned about what is happening right now about LNG and fracked gas, and also in terms of your position as a member of the Green Party Parliamentary Party. Please raise my concerns with your party leader and with Minister Ryan and let me know what the Greens are going to do to stop Shannon LNG.

The progress that has been made on fossil fuel phase out over the last few years is now at grave risk and with it the legacy of the Green Party in Government.

At the last election the Green Party promised it would “stand firmly against the importation of fracked gas” and the Programme for Government was very clear it would not support Shannon LNG and would establish a policy to prevent fracking imports.

The 2021 Policy Statement on the Importation of Fracked Gas was widely welcomed by people like me on the basis it declared “it would not be appropriate for the development of any LNG terminals in Ireland to be permitted”. Minister Ryan repeatedly said that this amounted to a moratorium on LNG.

Now the High Court has ruled that “the Government policy does not constitute a moratorium” and ordered An Bord Pleanala to reconsider Shannon LNG’s application to build a massive polluting terminal in Kerry to allow fracked gas into Ireland purely for profit, and with reckless disregard for climate safety.

Moreover, the Government decided last year that Ireland needed a gas reserve for emergency use and that a state-controlled floating LNG terminal was probably the best way to provide it. Fossil free campaigners disagreed, although the Government promised strict climate protection conditions. Minister Ryan is now saying the evidence supporting LNG isn’t clear cut and more analysis is needed, which would be a good step. But meanwhile the Government your party supports is pushing last minute amendments to the Planning Bill to designate floating LNG as strategic infrastructure and Gas Networks Ireland, a state agency that reports to Minister Ryan, is advertising for engineers to start preparing for construction! And neither the Bill nor GNI make any reference to the strict climate conditions agreed by Government last November in the Energy Security Package.

It looks like the fossil fuel promoters, corporate and official, are running rings around the Green Party or else you just aren’t doing enough to “stand firmly” for what you promised. The party’s legacy in this Government is now at stake. No to Shannon LNG is the Shell to Sea of the 2020s and it would be disastrous for the climate, and your party, if you are in Government and a big fossil fuel company gets its way again.

There are three things the Green Party must do now to reassert the imperative of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels and breaking the grip of fossil fuel companies on policy.

- The Government agreed to a moratorium on LNG, but clearly didn’t use a policy instrument that was legally strong enough to enforce it. The Green Party needs to ensure that the moratorium on LNG is immediately reestablished. That could be done in legislation, such as the Planning Bill, or I understand it could be done using a “Specific Planning Policy Requirement” issued by the Minister responsible for Planning, Darragh O’Brien TD.

- The Government must strip out the amendments to the Planning Bill that designate LNG as strategic when it comes back to the Dáil in the next week or so for the last time. Indeed the Government could actually use the Planning Bill to establish the moratorium on LNG in law. That is a policy instrument High Court judges would have no difficulty respecting.

- Minister Ryan must act on his doubts about an emergency gas reserve and commission a comprehensive and independent risk assessment of future gas supply and demand that is in line with the climate law and carbon budgets, and of the national security and public safety risk not just of a potential threat to the twin gas interconnectors from Scotland but also to any possible floating offshore LNG terminal.

I know that, like me, you appreciate the scale of the threat from climate change and imperative of standing up to the fossil fuel interests who would happily drive us over the climate cliff in pursuit of their immediate profits. Please do not let the progress of the last few years be washed away in the final weeks of this Dáil.

Stand firmly, like you promised, for a future free from fossil fuels.

Yours sincerely
etc,

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Emergency action required on LNG

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