Rundale

Emanuela Ferrari and Sinead R. Sheehan

Last year’s high court decision overturning the 2022 An Bord Pleanála refusal of the proposed Shannon LNG terminal in north Kerry should be seen in the context of energy justice, arriving after decades of resistance from local and transatlantic environmental groups. To persuade the public of the necessity of Shannon LNG, politicians and fossil fuel companies framed the issue in terms  of energy security, jobs, economic growth, the possibilities of pipeline sabotage, and even going so far as to call natural gas a transition fuel for decarbonisation.

The energy justice (EJ) framework is gaining popularity as a way to inject much needed normative and ethical considerations in to climate governance, which has arguably become a highly reductionist and technocratic form of decision-making . EJ addresses injustices that arise at procedural, distributional, and recognition levels in the energy sector. The procedural level concerns injustices arising in participation of civil society and affected stakeholders in decision-making; the distributional examines the uneven distribution of costs and benefits of energy systems; and finally recognition addresses the extent to which a democratic system allows for a diversity of cultural, identity, and ideological positions and its capability to accommodate competing political projects. EJ analysis centres on the power dynamics that permeate energy systems in visible and less visible ways from extraction to consumption.

Procedural Injustices

Shannon LNG issue is an emblematic example of procedural injustice.  The campaign against the construction of an LNG terminal in North Kerry is almost two decades old, and it is thanks to its efforts that, in November 2020 the High Court  quashed planning permission for the Shannon LNG terminal, obtained by the multibillion dollar company New Fortress Energy (NFE), on environmental and climate grounds. It was a victory which formally validated anti-gas activists’ concerns. Similarly anti-gas groups obtained a statement by the last coalition Government in its Program for Government, indicating the inappropriateness of developing  a commercial LNG terminal, pending the state-commissioned Energy Security Review, based on which in September 2023 ABP rejected a new application from NFE.

The considerable success of campaigners in negotiating energy policies should have put the LNG issue to rest. Why then is the government resuscitating the issue with a presumably more palatable proposal for a state-led, emergency, LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU)? An answer could be that the Green Party as part of the previous government coalition, paved the way for this move. While its election in 2020 rested on the promise to the anti-LNG campaigners of holding the red line against LNG, it had been working in the background to facilitate US investments opportunities in the Irish energy sector. For example, under Green Party leadership the government recommended an emergency, state-led gas reserve in Ireland in the 2023  Energy Security Package. Shortly after, the High Court reversed ABP’s refusal of permission for Shannon LNG.

‘Emergency’ and ‘state-led’ are currently the rubrics under which Irish policy-makers are sugarcoating their determination to facilitate LNG imports in the context of previously stated commitments to the environmental movement in Ireland. Howveer, there is evidence that these are red herrings: the requirement toregularly  remove the unavoidable boil-off gas from LNG tanks to keep pressure at safe levels, means that the gas will have to be sold into the market and replenished on a regular basis in significant amounts. Moreover, Minster for Finance Pascal Donohoe admitted the possibility of the private sector involvement in the LNG proposal, a fact that looks very likely with NFE planning application now on the table. Given that global LNG export capacity is set to increase by nearly 50% by 2030, mainly supported by the ramping up of US LNG extraction, it seems likely that the emergency narrative will turn in to one of partnership with the US LNG industry.  

The ‘security’ argument, hinging on the geopolitical threat of sabotage, is also unsupported by evidence and contradictory. The vulnerability of Ireland’s gas supply –  of which 80% depends on two interconnectors with Britain – has been exaggerated, by stressing the possibility of a Russian attack to the infrastructure. However, having a huge gas tanker moored just off the coast does nothing to mitigate geopolitical risk. On the contrary, it is a saboteur’s wet dream, representing a highly visible and explosive target, which could be used against US assets, making it at least as attractive for an attack as an underwater interconnector.

In sum, while the previous Government appeared to be responsively engaging with the anti-LNG movement, in practice it was planning to facilitate LNG imports by formulating commitments in terms that have allowed the present cabinet to repackage the same energy strategy and force-feed it to the public.

Distributional injustices

At distributional level an obvious problem is the government denial of the problematic origins of LNG, most of it coming from the US where almost 80% is obtained by fracking.  Because it is technically unfeasible to verify LNG provenance, the risk that the gas had been extracted by fracking is inevitable. Fracking has notoriously disastrous health and environmental effects on impacted communities and almost exclusively takes place in disenfranchised, racialised and low-income US communities that bear the cost, with effects ranging from birth defects, respiratory diseases, increased rates of cancer, undrinkable water and earth tremors. The fact that Ireland, which banned domestic fracking in 2017, now aims to import fracked gas into its energy mix, speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of Irish energy policy.

Similarly, LNG infrastructure  – consisting of extremely risky and polluting facilities – is most often located in predominantly African American, Native American, and Hispanic communities of lower socioeconomic status. In North Kerry – an area that has been largely bypassed by modern industrial development – the threat of Shannon LNG has split the social fabric of local communities, creating resentments and deep divisions between those raising awareness about the risks and those happy at the prospective of new jobs, regardless of their quality, safety, or security.

Further, there is a climate justice argument to be made here. The government’s justification for the massive fossil fuel investment in LNG relies on gas supposed ‘exceptionalism’ as a low emissions fuel, an argument that ignores a plethora of peer-reviewed science. Throughout the life-cycle of LNG, methane – a gas that traps around 120 times as much heat as CO₂ –  leaks into the atmosphere, making it responsible for 0.5 °C of the warming observed since the 1800s, compared to 0.75 °C for carbon dioxide, much of it linked to the rapid increase in US shale gas investments since 2005. In its carbon accounting approach the Irish government is only considering emissions at burning stage and ignoring extra-territorial emissions along the route from the US, which gives LNG a GHG footprint 33% worse than coal.

‘Natural’ gas is hugely implicated in the misapplication of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ towards climate mitigation obligations outlined in the Paris Agreement. Vulnerable countries in the Global South – many of which have not contributed to the climate crisis in the first place – suffer the horrors of runaway climate change, while the US – the largest exporter of LNG (and crude oil) globally, and now intent on flooding the market with its abundant domestic resource  – gets richer.

Meanwhile, the cost of questionable energy policies is offloaded on to Irish households at the consumption stage. On the one hand, Ireland will once again miss the 2030 emission reduction targets, because of its obstinate reliance on fossil fuels, facing fines of  up to €26 billion. The same taxpayers bearing the cost of the fines will also have to bear the capital cost of the LNG infrastructure, estimated at €300 million, plus €60 million annually of operating costs. These are linked to market dynamics and weather conditions  – both increasingly unpredictable – meaning that operating cost could increase greatly. Moreover, fossil fuel prices are especially subject to market volatility, contributing to upward pressure on energy bills and the cost of living crisis. This has forced some  households into energy poverty, and the impossible choice between food or fuel on an day-to-day basis.

The solution is not more gas imports – as the government would have it – simply because gas scarcity and shortages are not the main issue. The narrative of scarcity has been artificially inflated in the wake of the Ukraine conflict by overestimating European gas needs and underplaying the capacity of existing gas infrastructure to  meet future demand, even in the event of extreme supply disruption. Europe turning to US LNG means swapping one fossil fuel ‘Great Power’ (Russia) for another, the US.

Gas supply however does become a problem when we look at the elephant in the room: data centres. In Ireland the sector has grown by 65% in recent years. Because of the astounding volume of power they require and the crucial need for a steady energy supply, one of the pre-conditions for data centres for setting up shop in a country is the abundant and ever growing availability of fossil fuels. Enter LNG.

The growth of this power-insatiable sector in a time of climate chaos can be explained by the monopoly of the six US tech giants that hold unprecedented economic , and hence political, influence within Ireland’s FDI-dependent economy. This is illustrated by the recent reversal of a moratorium on grid connections for data centres in Dublin. Contrary to a previous government statement recommending that data centres should run on renewables, the Commission for the Regulation of Utility is now proposing to allow them to liberally avail of gas through on-site power plants  – on condition that any surplus is fed back into the grid. This portrays data centres as the solution rather than the problem for Ireland’s electricity supply. To add insult to injury, Irish households are subsidising data centres by hundreds of millions of euro a year, through capacity payments contributing to the aforementioned rising bills and energy poverty.

This is not a technical issue. It is an intentional political choice, based on economic and political subservience to imperialist powers and rooted in a neoliberal credo that sees international investment facilitated by poor environmental regulation as Ireland’s only pathway to development.

Injustices in Recognition

Ultimately, however, the injustice of LNG as an energy option comes down to an issue of recognition, and the failure to acknowledge that there are different ways to imagine the future, and the socio-ecological relations that support those visions.

Anti-LNG campaigners are contesting the future that LNG is locking us into, and the neoliberal ideology that permeates Irish politics, and the ultra-commodification of life – human and non-human – for the sake of profit. They challenge the mantra that there is no alternative to a neoliberal future, upon which consent to harmful policies is built.  

When campaigners argue that the LNG terminal will lock us in a fossil fuel future, they lament the erasure of other possibilities, such as the development of an indigenous, sustainable, community-owned, renewable energy industry, capable of supporting meaningful livelihoods.

Many community groups in Ireland have campaigned ceaselessly to say no to gas – based on a logic grounded in connection to place, that is relational, reciprocal, and responsible towards the environment and the people it supports, campaigners tacitly advocate for challenge neoliberal credo – and its logic of commodification – as the only way forward. They have done so by claiming principles of socio-ecological justice, by appealing to the soundest science, accountability, and ethical principles yet they have been bypassed by decision-makers. A healthy democracy should allow for competing political visions to co-exist.

The climate and environmental crises are a threat, but also presents an opportunity to wean ourselves from fossil fuels that have artificially sustained the unsustainable, and to explore alternative economic models as a way to re-establish a balance with our planetary life-support system. This is the message that the LNG campaigners are continuing to convey through their struggle – a struggle that is for all, and deserves state recognition.