Gas drilling project in German North Sea faces renewed pushback from environmental groups

As a gas drilling project off the German North Sea island of Borkum advances, environmental organisations have renewed calls to shutter the new extraction site. Groups including Greenpeace and Fridays for Future, as well as a local citizens’ initiative for clean air want to prevent natural gas from being extracted from reserves in the fragile Wadden Sea ecosystem. "We must no longer allow profits to be placed above the environment and therefore people," Fridays for Future representative Rocko, who will hand an open letter to German ministers on Tuesday (6 August), said. In it, the activists write that Germany has committed to phasing out fossil fuels and thus the extraction plans should be blocked. The group will also hold a demonstration on 10 August with established climate activists, including Fridays for Future figurehead Luisa Neubauer.

Dutch gas company One-Dyas was supposed to begin with the installation of the drilling platform off Borkum in the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site last week. However, this was prevented by Greenpeace activists on boats, reports business daily Handeslblatt. The company had allegedly pressured the government of host state Lower Saxony and members of the federal government to allow the drilling to go forward, reports NDR. Chris de Ruyter van Steveninck, chairman of the board at One-Dyas, wrote a letter in early July addressed to Lower Saxony's state premier Stephan Weil and other local ministers, warning that the company would sue them for compensation if the project was not approved, the broadcaster wrote.

Germany's environment minister, Steffi Lemke, has previously come out in opposition to the gas extraction project off the coast of Borkum, stating that it’s unacceptable to disrupt the ecosystem of the Wadden Sea to extract gas for a few years. In June, the Dutch high court temporarily halted the gas drilling project.