NGOs urge lawmakers to focus on renewables, not long-term LNG supply

An alliance of environmental NGOs has called on parliamentarians to make significant changes to Germany’s planned acceleration of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects to ensure that the current energy crisis does not lead to overblown fossil fuel infrastructure. “German policy must focus on the expansion of renewable energies, the import of green hydrogen and energy efficiency, and not on the construction of permanent LNG infrastructure,” umbrella group DNR, Greenpeace and others wrote in an open letter to lawmakers. The NGOs say the law on accelerating LNG should include “a precise definition of the impending energy emergency, an exact planning of requirements and a plausible justification of how much LNG capacity is unavoidable to avert it.” Land-based stationary LNG terminals should in principle not be the subject of the law, as they are only operational in the medium term and thus cannot contribute to improving energy security in the short term, they said.

Germany’s government this week decided on a draft text for an LNG Acceleration Act to speed up planning and construction of necessary infrastructure for direct imports. Germany is rapidly pushing several infrastructure projects for the import of LNG in order to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas. Germany has a well-developed natural gas pipeline grid and is connected to terminals in neighbouring countries, but does not currently have its own port to receive LNG directly.