Brussels, 21/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - European Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik, addressing the FT Global Shale Energy Summit in London on Monday, 21 October, said the Commission is working on an EU framework for risk assessment on extraction of unconventional fossil fuel, such as shale gas and a proposal is to be expected in the coming months. He had already spoken of such a possibility at the informal Environment Council in Vilnius in July (see EUROPE 10889). Things have become clearer since.
The right of member states freely to determine their energy mix, the need to reassure the public which is becoming increasingly active in demonstrations against shale gas exploration, including in the United Kingdom, how best to manage the energy transition - it will not be easy to square the circle. “The Commission believes that an EU-wide risk management framework for unconventional fossil fuels extraction, with a view to ensuring that harmonised provisions applying across all member states, would best address the above concerns. Our objective is to put in place a framework that would reap the potential economic and energy benefits of shale gas, and ensure that extraction activities using fracking are carried out with proper climate and environmental safeguards”, the commissioner stated.
He noted that “the production and use of shale gas could only be beneficial to the climate if it helps some member states in decreasing the share of coal in their energy mix” and that “hydraulic fracturing or fracking also raises environmental concerns related for instance to water pollution, the use of chemicals, air emissions, induced seismicity, as well as community impacts (linked to transport and land use in particular)”.
In Vilnius, environment ministers said they backed an integrated approach to risk assessment to ensure that all environmental aspects were appropriately addressed before any shale gas exploration or production took place. The European Parliament called on 9 October for unconventional hydrocarbon exploration and extraction activities to be preceded compulsorily by an impact assessment under the terms of the amended directive on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (85/337/EEC, the so-called EIA directive) (see EUROPE 10939). (EH/transl.fl)