Public Consultation on Unconventional Fossil Fuels: Europeans Want Developments
The majority of respondents to the public consultation about unconventional fossil fuels in Europe are in favor of developments in the Old Continent, with more than 30% thinking that shale gas should be developed in Europe also without health and environmental safeguards.
According to the results released June 7 by the European Commission, Poland and Norway are the two most shale enthusiastic countries, while France and Spain are amongst the most skeptical.
Big companies that took part in the questionnaire were favorable to developments of unconventional fossil fuels. A clear endorsement comes also from oil and gas companies: more than 40% of them thinks that shale gas should be developed anyhow, while almost 60% responded that unconventional fossil fuels should be developed in Europe only if proper health and environmental safeguards are in place.
Avoiding an increase of the EU’s energy import dependency and strengthening the negotiation position towards external energy suppliers were the two main reasons for respondents to back developments of unconventional fossil fuels. According to the respondents, the main potential benefits are related to EU economy and industry.
The major challenges underlined by respondents are the lack of transparency and public information, an inadequate legislation applicable to these projects and a lack of public acceptance.
‘A large majority of respondents agree on the lack of adequate legislation, the need for public information and the lack of public acceptance of unconventional fossil fuels,’ reads the presentation.
From the results, a strong support for all the measures to minimize the challenges emerged clearly.
‘Among the policy options, “doing nothing at EU level” is the least favored option by the majority of respondents,’ explains the work by the Institute for Environmental Studies.
More than 22,000 people took part to the consultation carried out by the DG Environment. Four fifth of the respondents were from just three countries: Poland (11,714), France (3,308) and Romania (3,166). Just 340 people were from the United Kingdom.
Euractiv wrote that Antoine Simon, extractive industries campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said that the study represented a “biased overview of the European feeling about shale gas,” as the majority of the respondents was from Poland. He was reported as saying that the majority of respondents would be against the developments of unconventional fossil fuels if the respondents were weighted by nationality.