Incompatible with Paris Agreement: Vote on Connecting Europe Facility leaves door open to gas subsidies

Financing the transition

The transport and industry committees of the European Parliament voted today on the future Connecting Europe Facility after 2020. While this EU fund should enable infrastructure that connects Europe’s citizens with clean energy and sustainable transport, MEPs turned a blind eye on the need to exclude fossil fuel subsidies from the fund.

Since 2014, this funding instrument has already provided over 1.3 billion euros to fossil gas infrastructure projects including the Croatian Krk LNG terminal, the Southern Gas Corridor, the Midcat pipeline between Spain and France, and the EastMed pipeline. With today’s vote, support to fossil gas, a fuel with substantial CO2 and methane emissions contributing to the climate problem and its catastrophic impacts, is set to continue.

Yesterday, the European Commission’s proposal to continue fossil fuel funding within the post-2020 Connecting Europe Facility was awarded a mock prize in the ‘EU Toxic Funding Awards‘, which name and shame the most toxic funding proposals currently in the pipeline of the future budget negotiations.

In reaction to the committees’ vote on the Connecting Europe Facility after 2020, Markus Trilling, Finance and Subsidies policy coordinator at Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe said:

“Today’s vote on the Connecting Europe Facility is breaching the Paris Agreement on climate protection. Building gas infrastructure will lock Europe into fossil fuels for many decades, which is not compatible with the zero emission pathways envisaged by the Paris Agreement. EU funding for gas projects will end up as stranded-assets, making taxpayers foot the bill twice. In the upcoming plenary vote the European Parliament must ensure that its support for a climate-friendly EU budget translates into measures that support the clean energy transition, not the opposite.”

ENDS

Contact:

Nicolas Derobert, CAN Europe Communications Coordinator, nicolas@caneurope.org, +32 483 62 18 88

 

Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change. With over 150 member organisations from 35 European countries, representing over 1.700 NGOs and more than 40 million citizens, CAN Europe promotes sustainable climate, energy and development policies throughout Europe.

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