The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP)

The towns of Melendugno and San Foca in southern Italy, are on the frontlines of the battle to stop the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which receives funding from the European Investment Bank. As part of the Southern Gas Corridor, TAP is planned to carry billions of cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan to Italy every year.

The locals have put up strong peaceful resistance against the pipeline construction, despite police violence and even Mussolini-era law that placed the entire town of Melendugno under military lockdown. The pipeline construction is currently on halt over the tourism season and is expected to resume in October.

The local community is preparing to continue resisting the construction despite the threat of horrendous fines. Under the banner ‘No TAP. Not here. Not anywhere’ they express their solidarity with frontline communities along the pipeline route such as farmers resisting TAP in Greece.

The Midcat Pipeline

The Midcat pipeline between Spain and France faces community resistance on both sides of the Pyrenees. The first 86-km stretch of the pipeline was built in Catalonia in 2012. Local groups are now building up opposition in towns and villages around Girona along the planned pipeline route to stop it from going ahead. They have joined forces across the border with French groups that have already been struggling against various imposed transnational infrastructure projects that don’t benefit the local communities. There are concerns about the climate impacts, massive environmental destruction and lack of transparency surrounding the project.

The pipeline would more than double the amount of gas that can be transferred from Spain to France, even though existing pipelines across the Pyrenees are already under-used. Experts question the economic viability of the project.

Midcat could bring fracked gas from Algeria to Europe. French oil and gas major Total is the biggest fracker in Algeria. While fracking is banned in France, Total’s operations in the former French colony threatens a crucial aquifer in the arid area and faces strong public resistance.

LNG terminals in Sweden

Photo: Jana Eriksson

GO4LNG is a fossil gas terminal being planned in Scandinavia’s largest port in Gothenburg, Sweden. The future of the project is not as certain anymore as resistance is growing in the city and in the Swedish environmental movement.

Since the group ‘Fossilgasfällan’ have been organising campaigns, events and actions against the project, politicians and scientists have started joining the debate against fossil gas. The concern is that the project would lead to large fossil gas imports and that it will trap Sweden in a long term dependence on yet another fossil fuel.

The terminal is the first of eight terminals being planned along the coast of Sweden, as the company Swedegas tries to market this as a climate solution – despite what climate science tells us. This comes as no surprise as the two companies owning Swedegas are Fluxys and Enagas who are both major players in the fossil gas expansion taking place elsewhere in Europe.

With strong connections to other gas resistance groups in Europe the local campaign group against GO4LNG are growing the resistance to this project. It’s crucial the terminal is delayed and stopped, as this would impact the rest of the national LNG expansion in Sweden, and destabilise the gas industry’s strives forward. Not here, not anywhere! #NO2LNG

Coal in Poland

Poland, the host of this year’s UN climate talks, is one of Europe’s last strongholds of the coal industry. The country generates about 80% of its electricity from coal and the government still plans to build new coal power plants, even though air pollution from coal combustion is choking Polish cities. There are days when air pollution in Warsaw is worse than anywhere in China. During intense smog episodes in January last year, one of Warsaw’s hospitals reported a 50% spike in patients, while policy officers were given anti-smog masks.

From 18-22 July, the Polish climate movement will organise the first climate camp in the country. The camp will support the increasing local opposition in the lignite mining region around the city of Konin. The local community is hit by heavy air pollution from the coal power plants and heightened water scarcity as the huge open pit mines have caused the water table to drop dramatically. As a result, farmers have seen their crops decline and a 30-kilometre stretch of the Noteć river has run dry.

Coal in the Czech Republic

Photo: Ondřej Bratoň

The Czech Republic is at a crossroads. In the next few years, the country’s old coal power plants will either have to be retrofitted or closed down.

The grassroots network Limity jsme my (‘we are the limits’) just mobilised for a climate camp and mass action targeting coal production from 27 June to 1 July. They organise together with frontline groups who organise around local air pollution.

Last year, the group organised the first climate camp in the country and with over a hundred people successfully shut down the country’s largest coal mine for a day, the Bílina brown coal mine in North Bohemia.

Coal in Germany

Despite a massive rise in renewables driven from the bottom-up, Germany is set to miss its climate targets because of its dirty coal mines and power plants. Seven of Europe’s ten biggest polluters are German coal-fired power stations. RWE’s coal operations in the Rhineland are the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Europe.

The Rhineland has also become a focal point for the climate justice movement in Europe. In solidarity with people impacted by climate change around the world, as well as frontline communities and local grassroots groups that resist the destruction of the land and demolition of entire villages, the climate justice coalition Ende Gelände (‘here and no further’) has been organising civil disobedience mass actions that have seen thousands of people disrupt mining operations. For 25-29 October, Ende Gelände have announced their next mass action to put an end to coal mining and protect the old-growth forest Hambach, which is being cleared to make way for the expanding mine.

Fracking in the UK

Photo: Reclaim the Power

The UK government has recently put forward a proposal that would allow them to push through fracking developments as a matter of ‘national interest’ that would no longer require planning permission from local councils.

However, the fracking industry encounters persistent protest from community groups at exploratory drilling sites spanning the country. After years of delays, the first commercial fracking since 2011 in the UK is poised to start this year at Preston New Road in Lancashire, where the local council was overruled by central government to make way for Cuadrilla’s fracking plans.

The grassroots anti-fracking network Reclaim the Power announced that it will be going all out this summer to stand alongside local communities resisting fracking. On 28 June, they pulled off a 54-hour mass protest at Cuadrilla’s fracking site at Preston New Road.

Gas drilling in the Netherlands

Shell and Exxon have been exploiting Europe’s largest gas field near Groningen, in the Netherlands, for the past 55 years, with support from the Dutch government. The drilling has caused over a thousand earthquakes, which has damaged tens of thousands of houses in the area, some have already become uninhabitable.

For decades, the people of Groningen have been fighting for an end to the drilling and compensation for the damage Shell and Exxon caused while raking in the profits. Their protests and worsening earthquakes have led the Dutch government to lower production and announce a phase-out by 2030.

None of this is reason for complacency for the grassroots climate network Code Rood who are mobilising for a mass action and action camp this August. They demand immediate action at the scale the climate crisis demands instead of promises for the far away future, and for Shell and Exxon to be held accountable to the damages they have caused.