The fossil fuel price shock triggered by the war on Iran has exposed Europe’s dangerous reliance on oil and gas. But rather than treating it as a warning, governments across the EU are doubling down – with plans to build almost 60 gigawatts of new gas plants that could lock the continent into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come, a new analysis cautions.
The ‘Merchants of Crisis’ report, published by campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels (BFF) on 15 June, finds that the planned gas plants, if built, would burn around 28 billion cubic metres of gas every year – equivalent to around nine per cent of the EU’s projected gas imports, or the annual gas consumption of 46.4 million households.
