The EU’s hydrogen plans are a distraction led by corporate interests

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Over the past few years, hydrogen has been transformed into a cornerstone of EU energy policy. Yet, oil and gas majors are taking advantage of the EU’s unrealistic targets for green hydrogen in order to sneak fossil-based hydrogen in through the back door, Belén Balanyá writes.

A look at the top 100 highest spenders on EU lobbying reveals that the hydrogen lobby is particularly extravagant, shelling out a whopping €75.75 million per year.

To give some context, this is substantially more than what big tech (€43.5m) and big finance (€38.75m) declare in the top 100 for their annual lobby spending.

The ranking sheds some light on the IEA’s newly released figures showing that an astounding 99% of globally produced hydrogen is made from fossil fuels. Yes, we are talking about the very same fossil fuels that are stoking the climate crisis.

In 2022, the total global hydrogen production of 95 million tonnes (Mt) was responsible for over 900 Mt of carbon emissions. This exceeded the nearly 800 Mt that was emitted by the entire global aviation industry.

Although the EU’s targets for green hydrogen are trumpeted with great fanfare — 20 million tonnes per year by 2030 — the fact is that current green hydrogen production around the world remains negligible. In 2022, less than 0.1% of global hydrogen (less than 0.08 million tonnes) was produced from renewable electricity.

Over the past few years, hydrogen has been transformed into a cornerstone of EU energy policy. Let’s look behind the scenes to see who is profiting from today’s inflated targets, massive subsidies and support schemes.

Meet Big Hydrogen

Unsurprisingly, oil and gas majors like Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, BP, Equinor and their lobby groups figure on the list of the top 100 spenders on EU lobbying, drawn from LobbyFacts data.

These interests, fully aware that hydrogen will continue to be mostly fossil-based in the coming years, have successfully hyped hydrogen as a silver bullet solution to the climate crisis. They are taking advantage of the EU’s unrealistic targets for green hydrogen in order to sneak fossil-based hydrogen in through the back door.

They are building on their campaign to sell the so-called “blue” hydrogen — produced from fossil fuels, mainly gas, with part of the carbon emissions “captured” — as clean.

Although it is often described as a low-carbon, low-emissions, and even CO2-neutral gas, blue hydrogen is a climate killer.

In fact, when their total CO2 and methane emissions are added up, the climate footprint of blue and other fossil hydrogen is greater than the direct burning of fossil fuels. Yet it has become a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.

Other polluting industries with a vested interest in the hydrogen economy have also jumped on the bandwagon, including chemical and fertiliser corporations such as BASF, Dow, and Yara, and big players from the transport sector like BMW and the powerful ACEA car lobby.

Manufacturers including Siemens and Bosch are along for the ride, as is the influential Hydrogen Europe lobby group.

In the increasingly urgent context of the climate crisis, the hydrogen hype offers a perfect cover for polluting companies.

Why reduce traffic, or transition to agroecological farming, or decommission fossil gas pipelines when hydrogen allows you to continue your dirty business?

The slippery slope towards neo-colonialism

The continuation of the fossil fuel era is not the only risk posed by the hydrogen hype. The EU’s hydrogen plans deepen neo-colonial extractivist practices, including the large-scale appropriation in producing countries of land, water, and energy that could otherwise be used to meet local electricity needs.

in a new report by Corporate Europe Observatory, we look at projects with a planned production capacity of more than 1 gigawatt of green hydrogen. We found that 41 of the proposed 109 projects are planned in countries already facing high water stress, including Spain, Namibia, Chile and Morocco.

According to industry figures, the production process consumes around 10 litres of ultra-pure water (requiring 20-30 litres of seawater or 12-13 litres of fresh water) for every produced kilogram of hydrogen.

This places additional demands on water in a context where food production and drinking water are already under stress.

The wind and solar farms needed for the hydrogen economy also require vast areas of land. For example, with an area of 8,500 km2, the Aman project in Mauritania — one of the world’s biggest planned green hydrogen projects — covers more territory than many global megacities.

Additionally, many of the countries that the EU considers as potential candidates for hydrogen imports produce little green energy.

For example, in the Gulf countries, less than 1% of the electricity came from renewables in 2022 (the exception is the United Arab Emirates, with 4.5%).

A vision away from the resource-grabbing corporate economy of today

For similar reasons, the African People’s Climate and Development Declaration, signed by over 500 African civil society groups in September 2023, rejects green hydrogen as a “false solution”, stating that “green hydrogen for export does nothing to increase access for the 600 million Africans without access to energy. Instead, it turns our African renewable energy into an exportable commodity and ships our energy overseas.”

This is not to say that there is no role for green hydrogen. Mohamed Adow, who leads the climate think tank Power Shift Africa, outlines what he considers as a “socially, ecologically and economically appropriate use of hydrogen” in Africa: “small to medium scale, for domestic use (not for export), not in water-stressed regions, and to produce fertilisers for food sovereignty rather than for cash crops for export”.

His vision could not be further from the resource-grabbing and corporate-controlled hydrogen economy currently under construction in the EU.

Yet, it seems that nobody is hearing him, or many others who might have a much healthier, resilient, and mindful vision for our joint future.

Belén Balanyá is a researcher and campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory, a non-profit research and campaign group aiming to expose any effects of corporate lobbying on EU policymaking.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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By Olivier Hoedeman, Researcher and campaigner, Corporate Europe Observatory • Updated: 21/07/2023
– 14:43

Corporations and their lobbyists have been using the Single Market rules to obstruct progressive social and environmental policies and regulations that might harm their profits. This needs to stop, Olivier Hoedeman writes.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of the EU’s Single Market.

It touches on almost every aspect of European’s daily lives, including important achievements such as borderless travel within the EU.

However, few are aware of how corporations and their lobbyists, with their obsession with “completing” the Single Market, have been using its rules to obstruct progressive social and environmental policies and regulations that might harm their profits.

Their corporate complaints against legitimate policies — which involve pushing the European Commission to launch proceedings for “infringement” of Single Market rules — are a type of lobbying that goes almost entirely under the radar.

And yet they offer a powerful tool to industry players to silently target member state legislation they dislike.

And now these lobbies are engaged in a successful push for these rules — which already tend to prioritise business interests above other public interest concerns — to go even further in their favour.

Instead of protecting the democratic space of public authorities, the EU is going in the opposite direction.

Industry lobbies are hitting back at climate measures

All too often, rules labelled as “obstacles” to the Single Market are actually crucial steps for a transition to a sustainable and socially just future, such as measures to hit climate goals.

For example, as the climate crisis hits ever harder with droughts, floods, and record temperatures proliferating across Europe, the French government’s ban on short-distance domestic flights that could easily be done by train has provoked complaints by aviation lobby groups to the European Commission.

In response, these urgently needed measures have been restricted in scope. Now, due to complaints by airport lobbies, the Dutch government’s intention to shrink Schiphol airport flights by 25% could also be undermined using Single Market rules.

Meanwhile, recent attempts in Germany and Poland to curb energy price rises as a result of dependence on ever-more-expensive fossil fuels also faced pushback using the Single Market as a justification.

The same goes for plans for the financing of solar panels in a Danish municipality because they were seen as a potential “distortion” to competition.

Blocks on legitimate policies abound

How does any of this square with the EU’s own commitments to reduce CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030?

Corporate Europe Observatory shows exactly how corporations and their lobby groups are using these enforcement mechanisms to block or undermine urgently needed progressive legislation at the national and municipal level in a new report, “30 years of the Single Market: Time to remove the obstacles to social-ecological transformation”.

Other cases of legitimate policies being blocked include the obstruction of social housing measures, public healthcare initiatives and consumer protection legislation regarding harmful substances.

They also involve bans on single-use plastics, sugar taxes, and restrictions on tourist accommodation and gambling.

In almost all cases, the business sector has either been able to roll back, delay, or weaken progressive legislation.

We’re moving in the wrong direction

Now, under the slogan of “completing the Single Market”, new proposals by the European Commission and corporate lobby groups are pushing us even further in the wrong direction by seeking to strengthen existing rules and enforcement mechanisms.

In June 2022, these lobby groups demanded that the EU remove “all barriers to cross-border business operations and intra-EU investments, forming a fully-fledged Single Market for all economic activities” and highlighted deregulation of the services sector as a main priority.

Sure enough, the Commission’s March 2023 communication on “The Single Market at 30” announced a whole range of new initiatives for “enforcing existing Single Market rules and removing member state-level barriers”, closely mirroring the demands of corporate lobby groups like the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) and BusinessEurope.

What these corporate players want is essentially a pre-emption of national-level initiatives that don’t fit their agenda.

This could mean that even where there is no active complaint, new national-level regulations will face tougher scrutiny at an even earlier stage of decision-making.

And the threat of rules being considered obstacles to the Single Market could have a freezing effect, stopping governments or municipalities from even attempting to introduce new social or ecological regulations.

The state is crucial in tackling catastrophes head-on

The European Trade Union Conference (ETUC) described the reforms as putting “the EU on course for a race to the bottom”.

Meanwhile, Corporate Europe Observatory’s recommendations, as well as a new civil society sign-on letter to the European Commission, call for a recalibration of how Single Market rules apply to things like public services, social justice, and climate protection measures.

Because if the COVID-19 pandemic, cost of living, and climate crises have taught us anything, it is that the role of the state is crucial in tackling these catastrophes head-on.

In order for Europe to protect and expand its public services and social protections and genuinely tackle the climate crisis, it will need to turn its back on neoliberalism and take steps to modernise Single Market governance so that the national and local measures needed for a just ecological transition are safeguarded.

We need to change the paradigm. Instead of removing industry-identified “obstacles” to the EU’s Single Market, we must focus on removing the real obstacles to a socially and ecologically just transition.

Olivier Hoedeman is a researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, a non-profit research and campaign group aiming to expose any effects of corporate lobbying on EU policymaking.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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